


Brooklands Becomes Malagasto

by PastryFudger, Zyzyax



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Drug Use, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Recreational Drug Use, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26474305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PastryFudger/pseuds/PastryFudger, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zyzyax/pseuds/Zyzyax
Summary: Spyfest Summer Collab 2020: Cuby18, Valak/Valaks, Savsilvy, PastryFudger, Wolfern, Pusheen, and I have worked together on another crack fic! In our story, our favorite characters from Malagasto show up to Brooklands and insert themselves into the school. What could possibly go wrong? Crack! No pairings!
Comments: 8
Kudos: 71
Collections: Spyfest 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: The Bad Beginning**

**By: Zyzyax**

Alex was tired. He was running on caffeine. It was awful. The teacher was searching for a pair of scissors to open up some sort of package. Alex just wanted to get the day over with. Alex blinked and then walked up to the teacher, whipping his seven-inch knife off of his calf. “Here, use this.”

The teacher looked relieved. “Thank you, Alex.”

Alex was handed the knife back. All of his classmates were blinking sleepily. Alex took the knife and sat back down. After the bell for the third period rang, students began talking. “Was I dreaming or did the mad druggy Rider whip a seven incher off of his calf in the first period?”

The other two shrugged. “I think we saw the same thing.”

They were passing the teacher they had their first class with just as something seemed to click. “Wait, fuck. ALEX GET BACK HERE!!!”

Alex seemed to appear from nowhere. “Yes?”

The teacher blinked. “You brought a knife to school.”

Alex shrugged. “It’s a useful tool. I mean, it got your package open, didn’t it?”

The teacher blinked. “Office. Now.”

Alex shrugged and walked off. One of the students muttered under his breath. “Crazy druggy.”

The teacher glared. “At least he has manners, unlike you, Mathew.”

Alex approached the office and decided to try to nap on the bench outside. Alex was gently tapped awake by Mr. Bray. Well, he was now Headmaster Bray. “Why don’t you come in, Alex?” Alex blinked sleepily and followed the new Headmaster into his office. The man offered him a chair and Alex sat down. “Why don’t you tell me about the knife, Alex?”

Alex perked up. “Well, um. It’s a Fairbairn Sykes 7 inch...”

He went on the fifteen-minute speech he learned from Ross about the things. Once Alex got done, Headmaster Bray looked...impressed. “Well done, Alex. I never knew you liked military history so much. I think some extra credit is in order.”

Alex felt a little slack-jawed but suppressed the urge. “Err, thanks.”

The Headmaster smiled at him. “Well, I’ve got to encourage an educational hobby.” Headmaster Bray sighed. “I’ll have to give you after school detention, of course, we have a strict no-weapons policy. However, I’ll try to make our detentions together productive. You don’t need to miss more study time.” The Headmaster paused. “While you’re here, I’d like to get your opinions on a few knives.”

Alex felt a jolt of surprise. _Bray_ was a knife hobbyist?! After a few hours of slightly Ross-esque discussions, Alex was let go at the end of the day with a “your detentions will start tomorrow after the parent-teacher conference, eh?”. Tom was waiting outside. “Are you good?”

Alex shrugged. “I’ll probably get detention for the rest of the year, but I’m still here.”

Tom looked relieved. “Oh, good. Let’s go!”

The two boys walked off.

John Crawley was done going to parent-teacher conferences that he didn’t get paid enough for. Where did Alex even get a combat knife? Crawley was also in charge of the mail. He let everything go through. It wasn’t his fault if Alex got poisoned after receiving mysterious packages. That, and Alex was a little shit. Crawley just didn’t want to deal with the paperwork involved for if he smuggled plants or some shit. “Daniels!”

The man blinked. “Yes?”

Crawley glared. “ _Cub_ needs someone to attend his parent-teacher conferences, again. Bloody little terror. He brought a knife to school. A combat knife.”

Daniels blinked. “Er, what am I supposed to do?”

Crawley shrugged. “Show up and make sure he isn’t expelled. The rest isn’t my problem.”

Ben Daniels sighed. “Do you know anything else?”

Crawley sighed. “Fortunately, all he did was offer it to a teacher to open a package and not threaten anyone. _This time_.”

Ben Daniels arched a brow. “Do these things happen often?”

Crawley shrugged. “Oh, only like once a month.”

Ben Daniels gaped. “ONCE A MONTH?!”

Crawley continued through his monotone talk. “Yeah, yeah. He’s gotten better over the years. Used to be like once a week.” Daniels just stared at him. “Anyway, the conference is at four. Don’t be late!”

Daniels knew he was staring vacantly as he left the bank for Alex’s school, but couldn’t help it. Who the hell toted a knife to their bloody school? Honestly. Ben somehow knew he was going to regret this. Alex was a good kid, no doubt, but seemed to be missing a few or all of the common-sense brain cells. Then again, he’d had quite a few concussions. Just his luck. Fox sincerely hoped Cub was going to at least be apologetic.

Gordon Ross cackled as he read through the report of whichever Scorpia peon had been watching the surveillance tapes from Alex’s normal-people school. Why the kid still bothered going was beyond him. They’d given him the full recording of the conversation. It was nice to know that Alex still remembered their lessons. The boy had been an excellent student at the island. Gordon printed out the conversation and began to read through it like he would when grading a paper. He eyed his scotch and grabbed it. Hell, why not. Gordon put a bright red A on top of the page and went for the quartermaster. Alex needed a new knife. If the surveillance tapes were anything to go by, the metal on his blade was crap. Didn’t they have tempered steel in Britain? Then again, MI6 had gotten a lot of shit points for not giving Alex any weapons. Gordon figured he probably got whatever he could scrounge. That was just mean, especially since Alex was a fully trained assassin. Gordon sighed. Well, someone needed to get the kid his first knives. Gordon walked off to the quartermaster. He glared at the man. “I want a full set of your nice knives. None of the cheap bullshit.”

The quartermaster looked at him. “What about sheaths?”

Gordon glared. “These are for a teen.”

The man blanched. “Alex?”

Gordon glared. “What have you got against him? You pale every time you hear his name.”

The man went whiter. “Nothing, nothing.”

Gordon didn’t believe it for a second but figured he probably wasn’t getting it out of the man. Darn it, where was Alex when you needed to blackmail the shit out of people. Alex seemed to be tuned in to a different portion of the gossip chain. When Gordon got back to his office with the gear, he decided to send things one at a time. He wasn’t sure how much of Alex’s mail got checked. Plus, he was bored and wanted to send Alex letters. Bray wasn’t the only knife enthusiast that Alex knew. Hmmph. Gordon decided to wrap the knife in brightly colored paper. Hey, no reason to make it completely grim. Gordon was in a festive mood and it wasn’t like he had anyone to give Christmas presents to. Except for maybe Jet and the Countess. Then again, Gordon didn’t have any remaining relatives left and people in Scorpia weren’t the festive types. At least Alex had avoided mentioning the times he went overboard on the scotch. Though, Gordon wasn’t entirely sure that the time Alex had draped blankets over him after he passed out weren’t dreams. Gordon Ross began penning his first letter and downing more scotch because why not? The other grading could wait for a day or two. Three was too busy playing politics with Kurst to get on his case for another few months. 

Crawley looked at the eighteenth letter from Gordon Ross to Alex and sighed. It was unfortunately bomb free, though. Reading this shit was fucking boring. Who goddamned cared about combat knives so long as they were pointy enough to go in the right way. Honestly. “I’ve read eighteen letters about knives, c’mon send a bomb already.” Crawley resealed the letter and placid it back on the package which was, apparently, another fucking knife. He sighed into the dry air of his office. “I cannot be the only one who wants this kid dead!!!” Then again, Alex seemed to have ‘accidentally’ killed off most of the people involved in his missions. He really shouldn’t be surprised that certain Scorpia people seemed to secretly like him. Crawley rubber-stamped the letters. “I hope it’s poisoned, you little shit.”

Crawley had not had a good time covering for Alex’s shenanigans. He shot the goddamned Prime Minister, for god's sake. Also, was nobody going to mention the millions of pounds of damage he caused because of a few drug dealers? Plus, the fact that the drug dealer fell off a water tower after some sort of struggle with Alex the previous morning. Oh, no. The golden boy had dropped off their radar for a few hours, no, it couldn’t possibly be him. And Crawley had thought Ian was bad. “Daniels.”

The blonde man came in. “Deliver this to Alex.”

Daniels blinked. “For a kid with one friend, he sure gets a lot of mail.”

Crawley glared at Daniels. “One friend his age, more like.”

Daniels frowned. “Shouldn’t we stop anything from adults?”

Crawley shook his head. “Naw, he’s pretty good at gathering intelligence.” Daniels still hovered. “I read the letters. He’s not in any danger and it’s nothing sexual. Now, deliver the package or I’ll find another agent who will.”

Daniels sighed and picked up the package and letter. “Bloody hell, what’s in here?”

Crawley scowled. “None of your business, Daniels.”

Daniels arched a brow and walked out. Crawley sighed. When would the man learn to never ask questions about Riders? You kept more of your sanity that way. Also, why on earth was Daniels concerned? Given the fatality rate of Alex’s mission partners, he should be more worried about himself. 

Alex opened yet another package from Gordon Ross. Given that the letter had been opened, Alex was unsure how it was supposed to have gotten past MI6. A glance at the clock had him stuffing the letter under his bed and sighing as he put on another knife and its respective sheath. Under Headmaster Bray’s careful eye, he’d already caught up on all of his schoolwork. The man was surprisingly patient with him. Alex thought it was nice and it was a shame he didn’t teach more classes. Alex wondered what the man had in mind. Alex had his nearly full array of knives on him. It would be a shame not to use them after Gordon sent him such nice things. Alex double checked the clock. It was time to show up for morning detention on Saturday. He was driven to school by a slightly grumpy Jack. She hadn’t been pleased to learn about his fuckup. He was mostly forgiven, but Jack hated early mornings. She parked at the front of the school. “Be careful.”

Alex blinked. “I’ll be with Headmaster Bray, how much trouble could I possibly get in?”

Jack arched her brow. “Alright, alright. I’ll be careful.”

Alex shut the door and raced towards the front of the school, only to find Headmaster Bray standing on the front lawn. “A whole three minutes early, Alex.”

Alex felt a bit sheepish. “Sorry, Headmaster.”

Bray waved his hand. “I don’t hold children responsible for issues with guardians. You’re not even old enough to drive yet. And the tube would have you here unreasonably early.”

Alex shrugged. “Thank you.”

Bray offered Alex his hand. “I was thinking we could do something a bit different today.”

Alex felt something akin to dread. “Oh?”

Bray looked excited. “Well, I was thinking we could go to a park and do some open-air demonstrations for throwing knives.”

Alex blinked. “Okay.”

Bray was practically bouncing. “Try to be more excited! It's just a few magic tricks. Plus, I’ve seen you throw knives. It’ll be a piece of cake.”

Bray felt a small grin appear on his face. Alex seemed to be doing incredibly at throwing knives. Bray had made sure to check the balance on them. And then had Alex narrowly miss him with said knives. Perhaps taking a potentially drug-addicted student knife throwing was not the best idea, but Bray felt like full day detention would allow him to monitor for signs of use or withdrawal. There had been none, oddly enough. Well, there went the current theory. Unless Alex had finally gotten clean to get into being a knife hobbyist. It would leave more money for knives, plus, the kid hadn’t balked at a several kilometer walk. He was ashamed to admit that he had been more out of breath than Alex after that. Plus, the kid had no shaking, didn’t act drunk or high, and also was clear-eyed and alert throughout the entirety of their lessons. There had been absolutely no signs of drug use. He didn’t even take frequent bathroom breaks. Maybe it was just rumors? The next knife nearly took off his nose. Bray grinned. He hadn’t had this much fun in ages. It was nice to share your hobbies with a young person. People cheered. Maybe this would help Alex with his self-esteem issues? The kid had trouble taking compliments. Bray knew in the back of his mind that he was rationalizing some fairly irrational actions that would see him fired if people found out. “Alright, I think we’re going to break for lunch.”

Alex frowned as Bray approached him. “We can share if you didn’t bring any.”

Bray gave Alex an amused look. “Alex, I’m an adult. I have a salary. I planned to simply buy lunch. You’re welcome to pick something out. That looks a bit small for a growing teen boy.”

Alex was a little sheepish. “Er, sorry.”

Bray shook his head. “I’m actually kind of touched, Alex.”

Alex followed the Headmaster as the man straight up bought two lunches and handed a fish and chips to Alex. “Er, thanks.”

Bray shrugged. “Eat up, you’re probably famished.”

Alex tore into both lunches with a vengeance. He was hungry, okay? Bray seemed mildly amused when he managed to down both lunches. “Thank you.”

The Headmaster waved him off. “My fault in the first place for signing you up for early morning exercise.”

Alex blinked. “So, are you going to throw knives at me now?”

Bray chuckled. “I think that would be a little too close to the child endangerment line.”

Alex blinked. “Really?”

Bray raised an eyebrow. “You seem surprised...Alex...have your guardians thrown knives at you before?”

Alex flushed and muttered something about Ian being dead now and it not mattering anymore. Bray felt mildly ashamed that he and the staff had jumped on the druggy rumor train and ignored other possibilities. “Well, let me know if it happens again, we can call child services together.”

Alex shrugged but didn't look him in the eyes. Bray sighed. At the moment, he didn’t honestly believe Alex would report anything to him. Oh, well. It was time to go back. Maybe this would establish rapport?

Alex was drinking in a pub with his Headmaster. Well, overall, it hadn’t been a bad day. First, he had thrown knives at people in the park as part of a knife-throwing show. The knives had been perfectly balanced. It had been a little unnerving to show off one of the skills he’d learned at Malagosto in public like that, but Alex thought it had gone over well with the little group of knife-throwing show enthusiasts. Alex had then been brought to a pub around dinner time. It was now darts. “I’m the darts champion!” He’d yelled over the hubbub. Alex had not known or ever imagined that about Headmaster Bray. Well, then. Alex and Bray had then tag-teamed people at the pub. He was good at darts. Ian had once taught him. It was kind of fun and once he’d won a few games, nobody gave him the side-eye about his age. After the entire tournament was over, Alex had been handed several hundred pounds. “Your winnings.”

Alex had been oddly touched. “Thanks.”

Alex reflected, slightly bitterly, that it was the first-ever money he had seen for any skills vaguely involved with MI6. And it was money from darts games. Alex had gone ahead and ordered his somewhat complicated favorite drink order. Bray had escorted him back home. They were both mildly buzzed. “So, I was thinking. Once you get all your homework done in detention, you want to do something like that again?”

Alex blinked. Well, it was always nice to have money. “Sure.”

Jack was probably not going to be pleased, but it was technically detention. At least Bray let him drink because he was sure as shit not doing that sober. “And here you are. You know, you’re not a bad kid, Alex.”

Alex felt a faint smile appear on his face. “Thanks.”

Alex went in and cracked the door. Bray’s last sentence was almost inaudible. “I love my job.”

Alex shut the door behind him.

Jack had been more concerned than angry. “Your Headmaster took you drinking and playing darts?!”

Alex blinked. Perhaps he shouldn’t have told her that, but that had agreed not to have secrets. “And took me to an open-air park knife throwing gig.”

Jack inhaled. “He bought you drinks?”

Alex shrugged. “Yeah, but I got them straight from the bartender. I’m not stupid.”

Jack let out a sigh. “Alex.”

Alex shrugged. “He seems like a perfectly nice man to me.”

Jack glared. “Well, you have kind of a low bar. I still don’t know why you put up with that creep Walker.”

Alex shrugged. “He just has bad social skills.”

Jack glared. “One of these days, one of your adult friends is going to turn out to be a pedophile, you realize.”

Alex sighed. He wasn’t completely sober yet. He took off his shirt, exposing his scars and knives for Jack to see. “And I have these if I need them.”

The redhead gaped a little. “Alex.”

He put his shirt back on. “What? You said that I find trouble. I’m planning to add a gun.”

Jack looked a bit teary. “It’s just. I guess. A bit sad.”

Alex sat down and sighed. “Jack. We can either pretend like my life is normal and I might die if I don’t carry weapons or I can face the facts and carry weapons that might save my life.”

Jack put her face in her hands. Alex moved closer to her on the couch and put an arm around her. Jack leaned into him, pulling him into a full hug. “Alex.”

Alex buried his face in her hair. “Jack.”

Jack held him there for a long time. “What does Tom say to all this?”

Alex blinked. “It’s not like he watches me undress, Jack.”

Jack started laughing. “No, no. Then you’d be something other than friends.”

Alex rolled his eyes. “You two and your never-ending quest to set me up on a date. I don’t want one, you know.”

Jack sighed. “Just try, Alex.”

Alex shrugged. “I’ll try when I meet someone interesting.”

Jack rolled her eyes. “You’re impossibly stubborn.”

Alex grinned. “Oh, but you like me that way.”

Jack ruffled his hair and whacked him. “I suppose there would be something wrong with you otherwise, at this point.”

Alex grinned. “I’m going to head up to bed now, Jack.”

Jack sighed. “At least you got all caught back up with that detention.”

Alex shrugged. “Yeah, there’s a bright side.”

It was going to be a good night. He could tell.


	2. Scorpia Arrives

**Chapter 2: SCORPIA Arrives**

**By: Zyzyax**

* * *

Yassen Gregorovich was not best pleased to hear about Alex’s current lapse of judgment in life choices. Alex had not only started going out drinking, knife-throwing, and dart throwing but also had a very specific and uncommon drink order. Yassen and a few select people had decided to slowly slink into London. There was no telling what MI6 would do or say and it was best not to get them anymore involved in Alex’s life. It was bad enough he seemed to be working for them, along with occasionally slipping Gordon Ross and Doctor Three occasional tidbits. Yeah, he wasn’t happy with Alex. Gordon was manageable. Doctor Three was out of both of their leagues. Yassen had slipped into London to, well, watch and intervene. Also, Alex didn’t seem to be capping his drinks all that reasonably. Yassen had watched him throw knives at his teacher for an entire morning and homework in a few hours for the entire weekend. Clearly, the teachers here had no idea what Alex would do if given free time. Alex was known to be a pyromaniac. He’d set an entire forest, Malagosto, and every. single. compound. that he’d entered while on a mission on fire. Yassen felt that Alex should have gotten more homework. Also, exactly where did his supposedly normal Headmaster get the idea that bringing a student knife throwing and drinking was okay. Yassen had considerably fewer problems with the knife throwing, but having your student join you in your journey to complete alcoholism was just inexcusable. Alex had a stunning ability to aim while six drinks in. Yassen suspected that was Gordon’s fault. He and Gordon would be having a little talk about that before Yassen left town for an assignment. Yassen had slipped a drug into Alex’s drink. It was a slow-acting sedative. Aside from the massive headache the next morning, it shouldn’t have any permanent side-effects when combined with alcohol. Yassen patiently waited for Alex to wake up in his room while some of his other teachers waited downstairs. Yermalov had volunteered to make breakfast, surprisingly enough. The redhead housekeeper had just...allowed it, saying that she was more than mildly concerned about Alex’s new hobbies. 

Alex woke up with the worst headache of his life. There was a very grumpy Yassen standing over him. Alex pinched his nose. “Fuck.”

Yassen glared at him. “Get dressed.”

Was it his imagination or was Yassen louder than normal? Eh, it was probably a hangover. Alex took the clothes that were thrown at him and went to shower. Alex sighed as the shower water hit him. Alex stepped out a few minutes later and grabbed a glass of water from the sink. He was going to watch his drinking after this. Waking up with Yassen glaring over you was heart-attack inducing. Alex grabbed a second glass of water and was struck with a sudden thought. Alex threw the door open, brandishing one of his throwing knives. “Where’s Jack?”

Yassen arched a brow. “Jack is downstairs eating breakfast.”

Alex arched a brow. “And she let you in?”

Yassen shrugged. “Your guardian is very concerned about your drinking habits.”

Alex blinked. “What?”

Yassen patted him on the shoulder. Alex squinted through the pain of sunlight. “So are the rest of us. Now finished getting dressed and coming down to breakfast so we can get on with the intervention.”

Alex wondered if Yassen was talking louder on purpose. Probably. He was a fucking sadist if Gordon was to be believed. Alex walked downstairs. Yermalov was making him breakfast. Fuck. “You’re making breakfast?”

Yermalov perked up. “Yes.”

Alex sat down at the table, ignoring the swooping feeling of doom in his stomach. Alex was handed a shake that was bright green. “What is in this?”

Yermalov sighed. “Spinach, yogurt, blueberries, oats, milk, and cinnamon.”

Alex blinked and gingerly took a sip. It wasn’t bad. “Thank you.”

Yermalov sat down with his bright magenta shake. Alex stole a glance around the room to see how fucked he was. There was Jack, Jet, Yassen, The Countess, Yermalov, and Klaus. He was going to die, he just knew it.

There was a literal ten-minute silence after breakfast. Alex knew better than to be the first one to speak and settled for rubbing the knife in his sleeve to stave off some of his nerves. Yassen broke the silence. “Jack, how about starting?”

Jack frowned. “Well, Alex, I was willing to accept this thing you have with Headmaster Bray, as long as it stuck to weekends. But this started to become every night. You went out and drank and threw darts every night.”

Alex shrugged. “I got all my work done. My grades are back to normal and everything. I even keep up with my workout.”

Jack glared at him. “I’m not Ian. I care about your mental well-being and this is not it.”

Alex just gaped at her. “Why didn’t you say anything?!”

Jack frowned. “I thought you might listen to these guys more since they were your actual teachers.”

Alex blinked. “Okay, why are the rest of you here?”

The adults spoke almost simultaneously. Yassen scowled. “You have a favorite drink order.”

Yermalov huffed. “Knife throwing while drunk is unsafe.”

Jet piped up. “You’re slowly poisoning yourself.”

Klaus was silent and The Countess cut through the room. “Wasted potential. One at a time.”

Yermalov refilled Alex’s shake. “Do not throw knives while four drinks in.”

Alex crossed his arms and Jack gasped. “But I still hit the bullseye!”

Jet scowled. “You’re as bad as Gordon!”

Alex huffed. “The man drinks all day!”

Jet’s eye twitched. “It’s called being a functional alcoholic.”

Alex glared. “There’s no need to get personal and hurt my feelings like that.”

Jet’s voice was raised. “Yes, there is!”

The Countess looked at both of them and they quietly sat down. Alex saw Jack look at the woman with a mix of awe and respect. Well, The Countess was a lovely, classy lady that Alex liked having around. Yassen glared at Alex. “Take off your shirt.”

Alex flushed. “But there are women here!” Alex was mainly concerned with The Countess. Yassen simply walked toward him and sliced his shirt off. “Yassen!”

Alex’s twelve knives were on display. Yassen began adjusting his holsters. Alex was beginning to feel very nervous. “See, isn’t that much better?”

Alex resisted a gulp. “Yes.”

Yassen looked smug and backed away. Klaus rolled his eyes. “How many knives are you wearing?”

Alex grinned. “A lot. Besides, these are throwing knives. You need a lot more of them than these.”

Alex took out the seven-inch knife Gordon had given him. Klaus frowned. “How good is your throwing?”

Alex shrugged, thinking of Ian and his god-like knife throwing. “Pretty good.”

Not as good as Ian. Not even close. Yassen cut in. “He can hit moving targets with pinpoint accuracy.”

Jet arched a brow. “And you didn’t bring it up because?”

Alex flushed. The real reason was complicated. “Nobody asked. Besides, I’m not that good.” Compared with Ian. Alex sighed. “Fine, fine. I’ll quit except for weekends which I’ve got detention for.”

Yassen muttered. “Not for much longer, you don’t.”

Alex sighed as he walked back upstairs. “Not that good?”

He heard Klaus ask. It was Jack, surprisingly, who answered. “I imagine he means compared to Ian.”

Alex closed the door before he heard any more. 

Alex was surprised that he survived the intervention. Honestly, that had been terrifying. Alex hastily checked that everything was in his bag before grabbing it to head to school. Yassen had helpfully tossed him his school uniform, so he didn’t have to change. Alex avoided looking at any of the adults as he got in the car with Jack. The car ride was dead silent. Alex was praying to whatever god would listen that today would be an easy day. Alex inhaled softly and began to use a calming exercise he’d modified from Yermalov’s disastrous attempts to teach him meditation. Look, ha had issues sitting still, y’know. Jack was staring at him in between traffic stops. Alex closed his eyes and began to count the turns of the vehicle. It was something Ian had once taught him. Then again, it was probably meant to help him escape while blindfolded. Jack was still eyeing him once they stopped at school. Ian’s voice echoed in his head. Don’t be rude, Alex. “See you tonight, Jack.”

The woman gave him a look that Alex couldn’t fully identify. Alex shut the door midway through her reply. Tom walked up to him. “Bad morning?”

Alex shrugged. “Yup.”

Tom patted his shoulder consolingly. “Bad luck, mate. I heard we got a substitute for biology, though.”

Alex felt relief. Not too rough a day, then. “Good.”

Tom rubbed his arm and frowned. “Must be bad if you wanted a substitute day.”

Alex gave Tom a soft smile. “Thanks, Tom.”

Tom shoved him lightly. “Race you to biology!” Alex grinned and tore after him, despite the “no running in the hall” rule at Brooklands. Ms. Bedfordshire was, thankfully, not patrolling the halls that day. Alex walked through the door to biology shortly before Tom got there out of breath. “No fair, Al!” Alex laughed and turned to greet their new teacher and then froze on the spot. It was Doctor Three. Tom was waving his hand in front of Alex’s face. “Alex? You’re not breathing.”

Alex inhaled. “Sorry, he just looks like someone I know.” Three was radiating something akin to anger, though he might appear affable at the moment to most people. “Er, hi. Welcome to Brooklands.”

Alex managed to choke out before taking his seat in the back of the class and trying hard not to throw up. Tom was shooting him concerned glances as class started. Alex paid attention, knowing full well what Three did to inattentive students.

Tom Harris was a little concerned about Alex but was otherwise having a blast. Dr. Three was the best Biology substitute teacher Brookland has ever had. “I brought some of my specimens for dissection! It’s a pity nobody approved the vivisection.” Tom doesn’t know why Alex looks so sick. He’s never been squeamish before. The man carefully walked them through the dissection step-by-step. It was awesome. Permission to play with - he meant to measure - frog guts was pretty much a dream come true for him. The dude also went over key similarities with human anatomy. “Mr. Rider, why don’t you remain after class? I understand you’re quite behind and I would be remiss in not helping you further your education.”

Alex grabbed his leg under the desk. Tom wondered if it was the teacher that was setting Alex off. Maybe that was why he’d gone all pale before this stuff even started? “What would happen if we combined frog and human DNA?”

Doctor Three paused. “Excellent question, Mr. Harris. But I believe class is, sadly, at an end. I’m sure Mr. Rider wouldn’t mind you staying after with him to discuss it further. Now I believe you have chemistry next hour with a...Mr. Ross.”

Alex blanched further at that name. Tom was getting seriously concerned as they both headed off to Chemistry. “What’s wrong?”

Alex sighed. “Well, I’d hate to ruin your day.”

Tom gave him the evil eye. “Say it.”

Alex whispered in his ear. “These are my teachers from terrorist school.”

Tom blinked. “Cool!”

Alex sighed. “Not cool.”

They both slid into class. Ross grabbed Alex. “You blow up our school, kid, and we come to yours.”

Alex was regretting his existence at the moment as Ross began their chemistry class. Tom looked at Alex. “What was that about?”

Alex pulled out his notebook. “Later, Tom.”

The rest of the day continued like that. Tom felt like teachers from the terrorist school were better than the rest of their teachers. Alex continued blanching and mostly recovering throughout the whole day. PE had been the worst, though. Alex had groaned at the sight of the Russian? dude. Tom had been afraid to ask. He’d set them all laps immediately and chased them through the gymnasium. “Faster! Like you mean! My dead grandmother runs faster than you!” By the end of the lesson, several people had passed out. Mostly girly girls who Tom suspected were anorexic or something and several of the chubbier kids. “And the last one called himself a physical education teacher! Disgraceful!”

With that, they had been dismissed. Alex had let him come with him to his talk to Doctor Three.

Doctor Three had briefly answered Tom’s question, to his credit. It did not help Alex’s nerves at all. “Now, Alex, you and I have much to discuss.”

Without your little friend, was unsaid, but implied. Tom looked at him. Alex resisted the urge to hyperventilate. “Go on, Tom. I’ll catch up.”

That is if Three doesn’t kill me on the spot. Doctor Three launched into a long and pointed lecture about missing key educational points. Alex had sort of tuned it out. “...Aside from that. I heard from Yassen that you’ve taken up hobbies of ill repute.”

Alex blinked. It took him a second to realize that Three was mentioning the drinking and the darts. “The drinking and the darts, you mean.”

Three cut him off. “Yes. That. It ends now.”

Alex gulped and tried not to squeak out his reply. “Okay.”

Doctor Three continued. “Here is your make-up schedule.”

Alex took it. “This sets my school days at sixteen hours.”

Three fixed him with a look. “Yes, it does. Also, given that your guardian doesn’t like cooking or early mornings, Professor Yermalov will be taking over your morning and evening meals.”

Alex resisted whimpering, but it was a close call. “Understood, sir.”

Three looked almost amused. “Good.”

The dismissal was in Three’s tone. Alex paused at the door. “What happened to all the real teachers?”

Three arched a brow. “Food poisoning.”

Alex blinked. “All of them?”

The Doctor was amused. “Yes. Now, I believe the principal wanted to speak with you.”

Alex left and headed for the office.

Alex knew that he shouldn’t be surprised, but he was. In Headmaster Bray’s office was a way-too-cheerful Oliver D’Arc. “Welcome, Alex!”

Alex sat down. “Thanks.”

The Frenchman was as cheerful as always. Alex had always found it eerie. “As you might have guessed, I’m your new Headmaster until further notice.”

Alex blinked. “Are there any other, er, leadership changes?”

D’Arc looked almost smug. “Certainly. Mr. Kurst is on the anti-bullying task force.” Alex choked back a laugh. Kurst bullied his way onto the anti-bullying task force. Alex could only imagine him bullying them mid-meeting. He would feel sorry for them, but they were a bunch of idiots. “Mr. Mikato and Mr. Chase are on the citizenship board.”

Alex found that almost equally hilarious, given that Mikato wasn’t a citizen and Chase had betrayed his country. The rest of the board seemed to be in equally ironic positions. “How did the school board pass this with Blunt watching like a hawk?”

D’Arc paused. “You misunderstand. Blunt ensured this would pass.”

Alex sighed. “I want to kill him sometimes.”

D’Arc’s demeanor didn’t falter in the slightest. “That’s the spirit!”

Alex arched a brow. “And what was his justification for this little stunt?”

D’Arc frowned. “Something about free training and not having to cover your medical costs and explosions.”

Alex grumbled. “Fucking cheapskate doesn’t even pay me for my work.” D’Arc looked nervous. “Er, sorry, it’s not your fault.” Alex paused. “Is this school even insured anymore?”

D’Arc quivered. “Well, no. Nobody in the country will insure a school with Gordon Ross.”

Alex patted the man on the shoulder. “Well, good luck with that.”

D’Arc paused as Alex moved to leave. “Also, your detentions from the knife incident are no more.”

Alex sighed. He’d expected it but was still kind of crushed. He’d been having fun for once. “I figured. Thank you for your time, Headmaster.”

Alex left and met up with Tom outside the school. “Any chance you’ve got some sort of time-killing procrastination activity?”

Tom grinned. “Yes.”

Alex had been having an especially rough few weeks. Tom had commented that he seemed to be running on caffeine and spite. Alex had just glared at him. After Yermalov started experimenting with his breakfast shakes, Alex had given up on controlling his caffeine intake. Apparently, access to new fruits meant new shakes. The fact that the school scores had increased had not come as a surprise to Alex. Malagosto’s teachers were good at results, after all. Tom was trying to convince him that it wasn’t so bad. “But I like the teachers. Yermalov isn’t even that bad!”

Alex frowned. He was not about to admit that he liked them even in terrorist mode. The “remedial classes from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day were not helping his sleep hours. “Lemme just down this Monster. Be right back.”

Alex was back after downing the thing. “Aren’t those banned for under sixteens in Britain?”

Alex knew he was the reason they were banned. Blunt had a blanket pass on laws that would “help” him. Alex had never wanted to murder someone more than that day. “Jack supplies me under the table. She says I look like shit after school.”

Tom blinked. Alex knew he might have a problem if Tom was concerned, but didn’t care at the moment. “That’s your eighth today.”

Alex sighed. “Yesterday hit me like a freight train; I’m still catching up.”

Tom huffed. “So, you just stood in the tracks.”

Alex gave Tom a squinty look. “I was metaphorically tied up like some 1900s black and white film damsel.”

Tom blinked. “Has that...happened?”

Alex tossed his empty Monsters. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Tom was looking at him with big blue eyes. “Whatever mate, I’m just worried.”

Alex arched an eyebrow. “You’re worried about energy drinks when I have terrorists at my school trying to kill me for 16 hours a day?”

Tom flushed. “Alright, so when you put it like that it’s a little silly.”

Alex made sure to keep up with the amount of water for those energy drinks. It was nearly four liters per day. The last thing he needed was to get kidney failure and be caught with his liters of energy drinks. He inhaled and followed Tom into regular people class. Alex had assassin classes before and after regular classes. It was awful. Alex grimly wondered what SCORPIA was actually up to. It wasn’t like they were friends.

Gordon was eyeing him funny in Chemistry. Alex mentally groaned as Gordon made him stay after class. Ross eyed Alex’s energy drink. “Kids aren’t supposed to have those.”

Alex glared. “Kids aren’t supposed to be able to shoot a running man with a pistol at 500 meters but here we are.”

Gordon raised a shaggy eyebrow. “That’s impossible.”

Alex gave him an innocent look. “Care to test your luck?”

Ross gave him a half-grin. “Against yours? No thanks. You’re gonna need it, kid.”

Alex frowned. That didn’t sound good. “With what?”

Gordon smirked. “Dr. Three when he finds out you’re drinking those.”

Alex gave Gordon a borderline homicidal look and replied in a honied tone. “He’s not gonna find out, now is he?”

Ross crossed his arms. “I’m a concerned teacher, Alex. I have to make sure my students are-”

Alex felt a jolt of panic. “I’ll tell Jet you peed on her Jequirity.”

Gordon scowled. “I did not!”

Alex smirked. It almost hurt. “Who do you think she’ll believe?”

Ross huffed. “Fine. Here.”

He handed Alex a travel coffee mug. Alex arched a brow. “What’s this for?”

Ross gave him a look. “To hide your energy drinks in.”

Alex sniffed the drink holder. “It smells like booze.”

Ross leaned against the wall. “How do you think I deal with you brats all day?”

Alex squinted. “It has your name on the outside.”

Ross huffed. “No one’ll notice. It’s not like they remember your name with how much you’re gone.”

Alex crossed his arms. “Shut up, Ross, no one likes you.”

Gordon retorted. “Detention. With Professor Yermalov.”

Alex snapped. “Fine with me. I didn’t want to go through your stupid lock picking bullshit again.”

Gordon now looked amused. “It’s Yermalov. His detentions start at 3 a.m. and you can make that two detentions.”

Alex glared. “I hate you!”

Ross grinned. “Music to my ears.”

Alex walked off. He knew he’d regret that little outburst in the morning, but fuck Gordon and his bullshit. It was his body and he would down as many energy drinks as he wanted. Alex eyed the canteen. Well, he could scratch Gordon’s name off and sharpie his own on. Plus, it would come in handy for his energy drinks. No more dumping dozens of tiny bottles.


	3. Duties and Authorities

**Chapter 3: Duties and Authorities**

**By: SavSilvy**

* * *

Taking energy drinks like water and drinking four liters of water to drown it out a day, is never a good idea. The unhealthy habit of overdrinking takes a toll on one’s body, and it does it fast. Tom was starting to notice the signs of Alex’s bad habits catching up to him. He was sure Alex had noticed it too.

It reflected in the embarrassing number of bathroom breaks Alex took in a day. Every period, he had ended up excusing himself two to three times. The amount of time he wasted in the toilet almost justifying the military-like 4 am-8 pm remedial class schedule he was forced to comply with. 

Tom had done his research and knew that caffeine was a diuretic. After doing extra googling on what exactly a diuretic was, he eventually figured out that taking a little more caffeine than necessary eventually leads to more toilet breaks, putting the number of liters of water he drank on top of it, Tom realized he wouldn’t be surprised at that rate of Alex ended up peeing himself. The class had noticed it too. Two to three toilet breaks every one-hour class is disruptive in the most polite words, meme-worthy in the words used by many of their classmates as the snickers got louder and louder every time Alex left the room to go to the toilet. 

Ross was only about to start his lesson when Alex excused himself to go to the toilet. As soon as he closed the door behind him, the students exploded in laughter. 

"What's so funny about your classmate running to the restroom?" Ross asked, genuinely confused at the sense of humor of his students.

The class went silent. 

"Maybe ’cause drug tests are coming up?" One brave student suggested as he cocked his head innocently.

A few students snickered at the remark. "Will we be having drug tests, sir?" Another asked. 

A minute more of prodding and Ross eventually found himself learning about the druggy reputation of one Alex Rider from some mouthy teenagers. By the time Alex had come back from the toilet looking almost self-conscious and nervous at the stares and the snickers that followed him back to his seat, Ross had caught up to the jokes of class and was also trying to stifle a laugh. 

By the amount of information the students gave Ross about the drug rumors, he could tell that they were expecting him to stage some sort of intervention. Ross found himself doing some research on drug laws and drug tests in the school over his next free period. He was not particularly concerned nor did he feel the actual need to stage an intervention. Sure, drugs are bad and they do ruin lives. but he did not think that anyone would have the physical abilities and the mental capacity to take down a large billion-dollar criminal organization under the influence of drugs. Either Alex was on some new magical drugs that could revolutionize the whole black market and the pharmaceutical industry, or Alex has just given more fuel to the natural inclination of high school students to be judgmental assholes.

Ross had a fair amount of experience with teenagers and decided that it was the latter. 

Either way, he had to put up this air of concern to make the teacher charade a little more convincing. Although he could not convince a group of people completely blasé with the black market and criminal activities that drug use among teenagers was a pressing concern, he was able to convince them that looking like they care enough would not set off any alarms on their lack of concern for the wellbeing of students. 

The case was urgent enough that he did manage to gather the teachers to his side of the faculty room for a game of the classic “pick the shortest straw and get the shitty job nobody wants.” 

Ross had done the math and assumed that the odds of picking the shortest straw were way too low but as he stared at the straw he ended up picking out, comparing it to the lengths of the straws of his comrades, he eventually decided that the job should not be given to someone at random and should be decided by merit. “Jet, shouldn’t drugs be  _ your _ thing. I mean given your background, you might do a better job than I would.” He asked, trying to sound a little more professional than he was. 

Jet shook his head. “Why don’t you do it, Gordon? “You can show him just how much they fuck up your life. You’re a walking anti-drug billboard with your shit history. At least, my history wouldn’t get me a life sentence one day.” 

“Yeah, but he hates me.” Gordon shrugged almost pathetically; he was just tired of the kid’s shit and the last thing he wanted to do was play a good concerned teacher for a day. 

“He hates all of us, besides I heard him telling that Tom kid that he likes your class the best.” 

“That was  _ before  _ I banned him from touching anything flammable/sharp.”

“You’re supposed to be  _ teaching  _ him. Aren’t chem classes made of flammable and sharp things? You take those out, you take away the whole chemistry experience.”

“Yeah, until he made napalm in class just to fuck with me and it was a bitch to clean up. I was so tempted to just let the napalm burn the lab down and blame Alex. Nobody would be too surprised, I mean he’s already burned the lab down once before?”

“He did?”

“Yeah, the first one wasn't even a year ago. Set the whole fucking thing on fire.”

“It was a lab accident.” 

“Exactly. When accidents happen around Alex Rider they tend to come with casualties and I’m not dealing with that paperwork so no explosives for him. He’s proficient enough on his own. He could probably teach  _ me _ a few things.”

“He’s not  _ that _ bad, he’s just a kid.” 

“Oh really? Did you forget that the  _ whole reason we’re here _ is that he  _ burned down Malagosto _ ?”

“Yeah, and who do you think taught him that?” 

“Oh, fuck off, Jet, the kid was lethal before he got to me.” 

“He’s 14.”

“He’s a hellion.” 

“No wonder you two get along. Maybe he’s your long-lost son - likes explosions, does drugs, stubborn, absent father…don’t know why a woman would want to sleep with you but stranger things have happened…”

Ross took a knife out of his pocket and slammed it, blade first onto his wooden table. The sound of blade ripping wood was enough to shut Jet up before Ross got pissed enough to stab her instead.

Ross narrowed his eyes at Jet, “Look, Jet, just take the fucking druggie intervention job. Just talk to him. Make it look like we care or something then we can stop arguing Alex’s capacities and our closeness with him.” He said with a low voice. 

“For the last time no knives in the teacher’s lounge!” 

In the end, Ross was still left with the responsibility of staging an intervention fueled by fake concern. Jet and the others were only willing to back Ross up on his bringing out a knife and overlook it if he agreed to be the one to talk to Alex. 

Ross waited for Alex in the classroom, sitting on one of the chairs towards the front. Tom was waiting in the room too, towards the back end of the classroom. Usually, Ross wouldn’t have allowed Tom to bury himself in gadgets in school but he realized it was better than having him overhearing the talk. Also, having Tom there was the only way he managed to convince Alex to take time out of his busy remedial schedule to cooperate with his drug intervention.

“I thought you’d give up by now,” Alex said as he wiped his wet hands on his pants. 

“You average 4-5 toilet breaks a period. Waiting while you take a ten-minute bathroom break is not beyond me.” Ross commented. “Next time take the toilet on our floor. It will save you 5 extra minutes.”

“I did. I just realized I needed to go to the toilet again when I was on my way back here.”

“There are no surprise drug tests Alex. You don’t need to pee everything out of your system.” Ross smirked.

“So, you joined the “Alex is a druggie” bandwagon huh?” 

Ross feigned innocent surprise. “No Alex, I’m concerned. Drugs shouldn’t be the answer to your problems.” 

“To make things clear, I don’t have a drug habit. My classmates just think I have one because they saw me chase after the car of a drug dealer  _ once _ and because I’m never in class.” 

Ross sighed. “Look, I’ve done my fair share of drugs and in any other situation, I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass. As your teacher though, I have to look like I’m doing something so I’m gonna have to mandate a weekly session with Dr. Steiner to help you get back up on your feet. 

“But I just told you, I don’t have a drug problem.” 

“Drinking problem… Drug problem… same family of vices, Alex. They just kinda muddle together after you’ve fucked up your life enough times. Just cooperate with the damn sessions.” Ross took note of the reminder on the palm of his hand. 

“So… Is that it?” Alex asked as he went for his bag on the seat next to him.

“Yeah, pretty much. Also, you could have saved us 15 minutes if you didn’t have to take too many toilet breaks. So, I guess, work on that?” 

“So, is it weird having a class with your Dad?” Tom asked as soon as Alex came back from his third bathroom break of the hour. 

“Tom, you know my Dad is dead.” 

Tom raised one eyebrow in disbelief. “No, I don’t know. MI6  _ told  _ you your parents died but they also told you Ian died in a car crash and look where you are now.”

Alex stopped walking and turned to Tom. He couldn’t argue that. “Alright and who exactly is my Dad?” 

“Mr. Ross.” Alex really shouldn’t have taken a drink of his Monster. The wasted caffeine alone was painful. He could usually just zone out when listening to Tom’s conspiracy theory of the day but the drinking habit had made it difficult to do just that lately. 

“And  _ who _ did you hear  _ that _ from?”

“Half the school. Dr. Three even said your blood types match up. Alex was going to kill him. Ross might even help. But people might mistake it for some father-son bonding time. He could handle it on his own.

“Our classmates come up with the most ridiculous rumors Tom. Druggie? Drinking fine, maybe I do have a problem? But Drugs? Tom, I wouldn’t do something which could get me a death sentence in at least fifty countries. There are only 8 blood types to pick from Tom, of course, I’d have the same blood type with at least a billion people.”

“But you’re always talking, you’re similar… personality-wise.” 

“We don’t even look alike!”

“What if you look like your mom? 

“Does this face look like it could be anything similar to Ross. At all?” Alex dug his pointer finger straight into his chin and stifled a wince as he did. 

“Yeah but you both like explosions!”

“Explosions are not a basis of paternity!!!!”

“Whatever you say. Just let me know when you go in for the name change. We can have a party. Get some “it’s a boy” balloon, cross “boy” out and put “match” instead.” Tom put his hands up as if he were some holding some fake banner. “Congratulations Alex, it’s a match! Your father was alive! I bet I could even invite the whole class.”

“And they’d go?”

“Yeah dude, I’ve seen shit on this all over our Discord server.”

“What discord?”

“Oh...uh...nevermind. Look at the time, got to get to French class.” Tom said, turning towards the exit.

“Wow, French class? Outside among nature? At the end of the day? Tell me about that.” Alex said as he looped his arm around Tom’s.

“Remedial lessons. You know all about those...” Tom started as he slowly tried to slip his arm away from Alex’s loose grip. He had known Alex long enough to tell then and there that Alex could tighten his grip and maybe even kill him any minute, maybe even both at the same time. 

“Alex!” A familiar voice called out from the end of the hall.

_ Saved by the Ross.  _ “Hey, Mr. Ross. Alex is over here.” Tom shot him a smirk “Looks like Daddy wants you.” He whispered as Ross looked towards both of them.

Alex subtly positioned his legs on the back of Tom’s knee. “Yeah, keep pushing the daddy thing and you’ll find yourself face down on the floor with a broken knee cap.” 

“Alex!” Ross snapped. He was walking towards them and Alex and Tom were in plain sight.

Tom knew then and there that Alex was powerless. “Better go before you get grounded,” Tom whispered mockingly. It wasn’t every day he had the upper hand. Tom went for the win. 

“Mark my words, Harris, you’ll regret this.” 


	4. Alex Runs Away

**Chapter 4: Alex Runs Away**

**By: PastryFudger**

* * *

Alex padded into the kitchen on a Saturday morning with a fully outfitted backpack and dressed for what seemed to be a climb for Mt. Everest. “Jack?”

It was a bit alarming that she looked up from her laptop, barely raised a brow, and then turned back. “Yes, dear?”

“I’m going for a hike.”

“Mhm.”

“A loooooong hike.”

“No.”

“... no?” Alex frowned. He’d thought she would approve of him getting out and about.

Jack just sipped her coffee and continued typing something out on her laptop. “I’m so clearly against it, what am I going to do? I can’t believe he just left without permission.”

Oh. Plausible deniability. Alex nodded, pecked her lightly on the cheek, and then climbed out the kitchen window, knowing he couldn’t trust the front door. It would be too easy to take his bike, and it likely had a tracker on it, so he instead took a convoluted parkour route that involved laying on top of a train like some sort of stupid spy movie and entering a brothel through the roof. By the time he arrived at his destination, he was feeling the effects of all of those Monsters fading and was glad to see his nest was undisturbed.

He quickly curled up in a ball and physically hibernated for over a week.

Yassen entered the teachers’ lounge with a sigh, closing the door lightly out of habit but still alerting the rest of the crew to his presence regardless. “Alex isn’t in class still,” he announced.

“I noticed,” Ross replied, not looking up from where he was shredding some papers. Whether they were legal documents or not was a little hard to tell when they were in minuscule pieces of the desecrated tree.

“Have you checked his house?”

Yassen glared at Nile for the question.

“I’m just asking, that’s all.”

But, of course, the lack of entertainment meant arguments spawned at an increased rate. “What do you mean he’s not at home?” Ross asked.

“It means he’s not at home, dumbass,” Jet replied, throwing a pen at him.

“Then, where is he?!”

“Do I look like I know?!”

“You sound like you deserve a knife in your spine!”

“What kind of segue into a threat is that?!”

“The only kind of segue you deserve-!”

“No knives in the fucking teachers’ lounge, how many times do we have to say it! We even made a sign!”

Jack was most unhelpful, stating that she could hardly stop him from being a rebellious teenager.

“I would go out and throw cheese and eggs at assholes’ houses in the night, I think Alex running away to go camping or something is fine. He was very bundled up.”

“Cheese  _ and _ eggs…?”

“Well just eggs smelled kind of weird but cheese omelets are amazing.”

“... Is that how it works?”

“No, but it’s the thought that counts.”

So then, of course, they started looking at nearby camping sites. And when that revealed nothing, local parks. And, when that continued to reveal nothing, local homeless communities, and then a few zoos, and then checking across the English Channel (just in case) and that  _ still _ turned up nothing.

They returned to Jack, and she just shrugged. “If there’s one thing I know, Alex wants to be unpredictable.”

There was no arguing that. They did, however, continue to debate on the cheese thing for a good few minutes before Jack kicked them out.

When Alex turned up at school the next Wednesday, he was instantly pulled into D’Arc’s office.

“Alex, where were you?”

“Sleeping,” he answered, quite honestly.

“That’s not where you were.”

“I was in the school’s old bomb shelter. Woke up with a lot of spiders on me.”

In the ceiling, someone whispered, “Damn, how did we not think to look there?” and Alex pointedly ignored them.

“Alex, truancy is not tolerated. Thankfully your employers have provided a more.... proactive way to address this behavior. Mr. Smithers, if you could come in, please.”

Derek Smithers entered, with what looked to be a slim wristband. “I’m sorry to do this, Alex but I was very disappointed to hear you were skipping school.”

It took Alex a few seconds to process what he was seeing and hearing, and by then Yassen had snuck the ankle bracelet around his left ankle and secured it. 

“Wha- But you- I was here the whole time!”

“You didn’t show up to class, though.”

“Smithers!!!”

“Alex, you must know how important an education is.”

Alex just gave him an incredulous look. “You know they’re terrorists, right?”

“Education is still important.”

“Terr-or-ists,” he reiterated, and Smithers shook his head.

“Terrorists who are giving you an education so you don’t become one.”

“They’re doing the exact opposite of that!”

“Don’t be dramatic, Alex we’re not making you do anything you don’t already want to do.”

“Yes! Yes, you are! Like coming to this hellhole school and getting my shit kicked in for 16 hours a day!”

“It’s not  _ our  _ fault you got behind in school.”

“It is though! Besides, learning how to break someone’s leg in 9 places is not covered on the GCSEs!”

D’Arc cut into the argument smoothly. “We never said you were behind in your traditional subjects. Just your extracurriculars and now we have to catch you up even more.”

“Killing people is not an extracurricular activity!!!”

“No, but learning  _ how to _ is,” Gordon commented from the ceiling.

“Shut up, Ross.”

“Don’t talk to your father that way, Old Bean, it’s very disrespectful,” Smithers said reproachfully.

D’Arc just nodded along, and Ross snorted loudly through the ceiling tiles. Alex went through what seemed to be all five stages of grief in a matter of seconds before sighing heavily. “I’m going to kill all of you. Every single one of you.”

“ _ That’s _ the spirit, Alex!”

Of course, that ankle bracelet lasted an approximate four days (some time was lost between when Alex got it off and when he was found at a local pub), and naturally, Gordon was blamed for that.

“You taught him how to hack computers!”

“But not ankle bracelets.” He paused. “I think.”

“You think?! Did you seriously drink so much you don’t remember what you’ve taught him?”

“Yermalov is the one who ran him into the ground so hard he had to hibernate like a bear! Why am I being yelled at for this?”

Smithers, of course, swiftly adjusted the ankle bracelet, and Alex was saddled with detention. As in, extra detention.

“Alex, mate, you alright?”

Tom watched Alex pour two Monsters into a thermos of coffee, take a sip, and then wince.

“No, Tom. I’m not alright. And I fear it may get worse.”


	5. Alex Gets Captured

**Chapter 5: Alex Gets Captured**

**By: cuby18**

* * *

Alex slowly woke up. He needed a couple of moments to identify the foreign feeling until he realized he was well-rested, something that had been a foreign concept lately, and should have – in retrospect – be the first sign that something was off. However, it wasn't until he tried to stretch his arms that he realized his movement was even more impaired than usual in the mornings due to Yermalov's remedial lessons. He opened his eyes and saw that he was lying on the concrete floor in the dark, gloomy room, with one of his hands secured with a chain. It looked just like any other room he was held in after being captured on a mission and that thought finally jogged his memory.

He remembered being called to R&G, his ankle bracelet taken off, and then he was debriefed on some new gang? or something that started amassing influence and MI6 wanted him to spy on. He was about to refuse and do so using new curse words he learned from Ross when they promised him a week off school after he came back. It was so different from their other tactics that he was left speechless for almost a whole minute, but when Blunt confirmed Jones' words, he was in. It didn't matter anymore that he was on a verge of collapsing since they grabbed him before he had a chance to drink his energy drink, they were promising a chance at getting a full night sleep, and that was just too good of an opportunity to pass. So, he accepted the mission. Everything after that is more or less a blur. There was Smithers, he recalls, he changed into something less noticeable than his school uniform, a car took him to another part of the town... he also remembers something about trying to enter some building through a tunnel when there were some movements behind him and the next thing he remembers is waking up. The more he thinks about it, the more it sounds like the blurriness is due to his fatigue (he never got a chance to finish that drink after all), and he isn't even sure if his capture was due to his opponents being smarter than usual, or just a result of him collapsing in that tunnel due to exhaustion.

He groans. He just knows he'll never hear the end of it if Ross or God forbid Yermalov ever catch wind of it. If anyone asks, they had a knock-out gas to fill the tunnel with if you didn't enter the correct code after entering. Yes, that should work, he could also blame MI6 for sloppy data collection. He's on the verge of congratulating himself for a job well-done when he realizes there is yet another problem he didn't consider – namely the fact that he missed his detention (and remedial lessons). The plan was for him to take a quick look around, plant a bug or two and then get the hell out of the building. Then MI6 would pick him up and take him to a secure location where he would get to rest for a bit before teachers inevitably found him again. He didn't believe he would get a fortnight off school, the Good Doctor would never permit it, but he dared hope for a couple of days at least.

That was almost enough for him to forget that he should concern himself with other more important stuff at the moment – namely getting the fuck out of wherever he was being held and putting as much distance as he possible between himself and everyone else.

He sighed and started planning. He might as well put those remedial lessons to good use. 

Especially since it was the first time in a while he was truly awake and not running on caffeine when attempting them. Also, it could only help his case when they find him – at least he could prove he listened to them. Always a good thing when dealing with people. At least Countess liked to say it was a fool-proof way to endear yourself to people, and she should know. 

Meanwhile at Brookland Comprehensive…

The teachers were gathered in a conference room for breakfast and mandatory weekly debriefing. Or, they were there for debriefing, but D’Arc was late as usual, meaning they had time to gossip. And there was nothing better to gossip about than their favorite student. 

“So, anything new on Mr. Rider’s front?” asked the Countess.

“Rider hasn’t shown up in two days,” complained Ross.

“It’s Monday, Gordon. There is no school on the weekend.” Jet rolled her eyes, fed up with his incessant complaints.

“There is for him. And he didn’t show.” 

“Why didn’t you say anything then?” 

“And give up a chance for my first free weekend in months?” 

“He could have died!” 

“If he did then he wouldn’t be worth my time anyways.” 

“If anything managed to kill him while he was playing truant he would deserve it,” Yermalov coldly stated.

“It doesn't seem like him,” suspiciously said Jet. “Are you sure it wasn't you who didn't show up?” The latter was aimed at Ross who ended up on the receiving end of multiple suspicious pairs of eyes. 

“You all know I take my responsibilities seriously,” he said, offended. “When have I ever avoided my responsibilities?” 

Here everyone scoffed. He blushed. “It was one time! I was poisoned!” 

“You were hungover,” was Yermalov's response. “Everyone knows that.” 

“So, if you weren't drunk and he didn't turn up at all... It might mean something is amiss. Did anyone see him today?” Jet interrupted them.

“No,” answered the Countess. “He also wasn't there during the roll call.” She shrugged. “I just thought he was late due to yet another 'remedial lesson',” she finished sarcastically. 

“Since it appears not to be the case it would be prudent to find him. We can't have him skiving off, our reputation is bad enough without us losing a student on top of it.” 

“You don't think it's his revenge for all those detentions where Yermalov tries to kill him? Or for Ross not letting him blow stuff up anymore? After all, he was the reason we had to relocate, all because Rothman tried to kill him once. Yermalov's attempts happen regularly.” Jet appeared slightly concerned. 

“What about the ankle bracelet?” Yermalov finally asked to move the conversation away from his completely professional teaching techniques. They were just jealous he got the most time with Alex one on one.

“Says he’s at some bank.” 

“MI6 then.” 

“They sent him on a mission without asking  _ us first _ ?!” Jet was indignant. “They can't have us train him and then undermine us at every step!” 

“We’re not exactly on the same side, Jet.” 

“Clearly, since we don’t approve of  _ child endangerment _ .” 

“Yermalov beats him up every day, I don’t think we have the moral high ground,” The Countess calmly said and took a sip of her tea. 

“Right, we’re going to find him,” Jet was determined to get Alex back as soon as humanly possible. He was the only student ever to do her extra credit! She wasn't about to lose him because of MI6's sloppiness. 

“He’ll be  _ fine,  _ Jet,” groaned Ross. “He's got experience with these things.” 

“Then you can stay here and coddle the other kiddies, Gordon.” 

Gordon sent one last look at his bacon. “When do we leave, again?” 

“Now.” 

“What  _ about _ the other kids?” 

“I don’t know, have Nile come in and do a guest lecture?” Jet was already gathering her bag. 

“On what?” 

“Knives.” 

“The parents are  _ not _ going to be happy about that.” 

“Sounds like D’Arc’s problem. Now are we going after Rider or not?” 

The decision was unanimous. When they encountered Dr. Three in the hallway he simply fell in step with them. 

“I already informed Nile of his new assignment. D'Arc should be sending out notifications to parents and students alike about how we're having a week dedicated to Africa.” 

No one asked him how he knew what was going on. They were a terrorist organization with infiltration as one of their specialties, it would be surprising if he didn't know everything that went on in the school. And no one was stupid enough to tell him not to come with them. The last person that opposed him ended up helping him demonstrate his new techniques to students. It was also the last thing they did. And while the consequences might not be so dire while they had their current batch of students, their self-preservation and common sense wouldn't let them test the theory. 

D'Arc just rubbed his temples when he received his latest instructions. It was way easier when he had to manage Malagosto, students there knew not to question their instructors if they wanted to survive their training and there were no parents that would hold them accountable for anything they did. But London private schools? Parents had more influence than the teachers here, all due to tuition. That was just another proof Malagosto's system was superior; with graduates paying for the schooling they had already completed, there wasn't anyone complaining about how their money was being spent. But these parents... 

He resigned himself to spending the next couple of hours composing something that would make them accept newly reinstated 'African studies and African days' as something legit. He sighed. He missed the days when the only paperwork was what the Board demanded from them. 

Nile was a bit apprehensive when he received his last assignment, but hey, they needed him to wave his swords around for a bit. Yes, he was supposed to make it educational and about Africa, but it was for kids, they wouldn’t care about that stuff, as long as he kept them properly engaged it should do the trick. 

The whole auditorium was enraptured in the performance on the stage. Nile was dancing among several dummies, demonstrating different ritualistic ways to behead, main or just disfigure someone, his actions accompanied by occasional: “This technique was developed by this and this tribe... this is the way that tribe executed the first colonials that arrived into their village... This is the original purpose of this spear... The perfect way to kill a tiger is to slice like this...” 

There were moments during the presentation when students looked at him slightly apprehensively, but they were largely enjoying their time off, despite the Principal's off-hand comment about some exam coming up and how they should look up some stuff beside knife techniques. No exam could distract them from watching Nile throwing his knives while blindfolded and then cutting the fruit he was juggling until it was ready to be mixed into a fruit salad that they were served for lunch. 

All in all, the day was a resounding success. D'Arc just hoped the teachers would be back by the next day because he was running out of stuff Nile could realistically demonstrate before it became obvious weapons demonstrations were the only African thing he was even remotely familiar with.


	6. Rescuing Alex

**Chapter 6: Rescuing Alex**

**By: cuby18**

* * *

Alex threw one last look at his project. If he calculated things correctly, and he believed he did, then explosions should start in less than three minutes. he sighed. He was almost feeling guilty for his plans to set everything on fire since it was his most pleasant kidnapping to date. It was probably because they were the first villains in a long time that didn't seem to expect him, and, even more surprisingly, didn't immediately recognize him. They actually didn't recognize him at all, and while he couldn't help but be suspicious of a crime organization that was a big enough threat for MI6 to send him in, but still didn't have a file on him somewhere, he nonetheless decided to enjoy the relative luxury of three meals per day and a blanket to cover himself with while sleeping. Compared to his previous accommodation on missions, it probably equaled a five-star rating. and not just compared to his old missions, also compared to how he barely got any decent sleep or more than one meal a day for the last couple of weeks since his old instructors took over his school. He even managed to flush some of the caffeine and sugar that he digested in bulk out of his body, and that was one of the reasons he waited two full days until he made any attempt toward a breakout. The second reason was that it took them two days of him doing nothing to escape for them to label him not a threat and moved him up several floors where he also found ample ingredients to orchestrate his escape. And his third and last reason (that he wasn't about to admit to anyone) was the realization that this was probably the only respite he would get from school - and wasn't it a big change from how he wanted to stay in school less than a month ago still - in a long time. He realized the fortnight of holidays that MI6 promised him wasn't going to happen as soon as he was captured and consequently treated his capture as a form of that holiday. However, he knew that there was a limit to how much time he could pretend to spend incapacitated especially with all the extra training he had been receiving lately. he wasn't under any delusion that he wouldn't be thoroughly interrogated upon his return, and should he fail to prove he tried everything in his arsenal of skills to escape, he wouldn't like the consequences. And he didn't want to even contemplate the amount of sleep he would miss if that came to pass, and that was something he really couldn't afford with his current sleep schedule or better lack of thereof.

He was brought out of his musing by the sound of glass breaking. For a second there he feared he'd miscalculated until the sound came from somewhere behind him. He spun around, eyes searching for the threat. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry when he saw Yermalov land like a cat and Gordon stumbling in after him. He settled on simply staring at them, wondering if he took so much time it warranted an extraction team. Then he saw Jet and barely managed to brace himself so she didn't topple him to the floor when she tackled him.

“You're alive!” Her relief was palpable, and he started wondering if he didn't perhaps just hallucinate the whole ordeal when she followed it up with: “It would be such a shame if you didn't finish your research project. Hurry, the plants are already dying, you should've been tending to them every thirteen hours!”

He let out the breath he was holding. That was more like the Jet he knew.

However, before he could say anything in his defense, Gordon was already inspecting his device.

“Nice, really nice... I guess you can be forgiven for taking that long to make it since it's the work of art... You even managed to rig it just so the whole floor bar that corner up there will be obliterated! Full points for precision! Also, extra credit for adding a timer! The sheer ingenuity of using the egg timer! And we arrived just in time to see it at work! Even more extra points for showmanship!” Gordon was almost dancing on the spot. His mannerisms exuded giddiness.

Alex started to preen slightly. It went even better than planned! If Gordon was so impressed it was unlikely he would put up a fuss about how long it took him to complete the task (and his disappearance meant he could sleep in during the weekend, something he knew he missed).

He was just about to make some comments about how he managed to use the elastic band to make the timing even more precise when Jet's shout brought him back to reality.

“We came just in time to watch the explosion with our own eyes, from up close!” She looked ready to strangle someone. “The explosion that will take out the majority of the floor we're on! Are you all stupid? Why are you just standing there?”

Alex was the first to wake up from his stupor.

"Uh, I had, like, a plan to escape just before it went off? Like, right now?"

He didn't wait to see what they'd do, he just ran towards the window they oh-so-conveniently broke and flung himself out using the telephone wire he secured to the opposite window beforehand.

He more felt than heard the way they all followed him, and only once he was on the floor and looking up to the unimpressed Countess and Three, did he realize the whole extent of the what just transpired, and promptly wished he had foregone the five-star treatment and had broken out sooner, even though it would be with fewer points for style.

He didn't have that much time to regret his life choices when three more people landed next to him. Not even a second too early, since the explosion happened right after, accompanied by Gordon's regretful mutterings about how they should have stayed up there to see if the planned safe area stayed safe.

Alex was about to reassure him that it should have stayed that way when The Countess spoke.

"So, you planned on blowing up and setting on fire the whole floor you were on at the moment."

"Um, yes?" Alex hesitantly said. "I mean, I had an escape plan! And it worked, as we just demonstrated." Here he pointed at all of them who didn't look any worse to wear if one didn't look at Her nursing her broken nail.

"What gave you the stupid idea to set that floor on fire?! Every idiot knows you don't limit your escape ways to that extent unless absolutely necessary!" It looked like Jet wasn't about to forgive him about that nail.

Alex started panicking. It didn't go the way he planned it to. Well, when in doubt there was just one person to blame. Well, two, but since Walter wasn't there Ross was the scapegoat. Also, it wouldn't help his case if he said he trusted Walter to give him useful and lifesaving advice.

"We never covered that part in our lectures... Gordon even stopped instructing me at all after that little explosion that wasn't even my fault!" He gave her his best puppy eyes.

He wasn't sure it would work, but he counted on Jet being pissed at Gordon about one thing or another, as was the case ninety percent of the time.

"Of course, it was all Gordon's fault, why are we even surprised?!" She started ranting. "Not only did he keep the news of his disappearance a secret for two weeks, but he also could have gotten him killed with his incompetent teaching skills.”

She started advancing towards Ross who was moving back slightly when they were interrupted by yet another person Alex knew.

Wolf.

“Cub! Here you are! We were searching for you for the last day and a half. What the hell was going on there? How did you escape the explosion?” The questions were coming out of his mouth at such a rapid pace that Alex didn’t even try to interrupt. Wolf paused for long enough to inform the rest of his team of their location.

“I saw you drop down from the building seconds before the explosion. Why is there always some explosion or another when you’re involved?” Here he stared expectantly at Alex who was trying desperately to come up with some excuse.

And since he couldn’t come up with anything better he decided to stick with his story from before. Quietly praying that Gordon didn’t kill him for it, he pointed his index finger in his direction.

“It was all his fault. Just ask Jet.”

Wolf followed his finger, seemingly noticing his entourage for the first time. He took just one look at Yermalov’s threatening stance, covering Gordon and still advancing Jet, and promptly brandished his weapon.

“Stay where you are!” Everyone looked at him in shock. Alex thought slightly hysterically that it must have been the first time any of them froze after receiving such an order, although he was pretty sure it was due to shock that someone dared and not due to any sense of respect towards authority. It was also the moment the rest of the Unit arrived at the scene.

Alex was pretty surprised to see Fox dressed in his old military gear since he distinctly remembered seeing the man in the bank during his recent visit, but all thoughts along that line were interrupted when Eagle opened his mouth.

“Oh, look at you Wolfie, all protective of little Cub,” he cooed and lunged forward to - allegedly - hug Wolf. He was, thankfully, held back by Snake, while Fox seemed to be torn between joining Wolf in drawing his weapon and telling him to rather put it back because it was a colossally bad idea to point your gun at people in front of them.

It looked like it would be a lot of fun to watch, especially after he saw Jet’s face when she processed Wolf’s words and they knew he was captured and didn’t inform her to know not to expect him to tend to his plant project, but he also realized it was his one chance to get away.

And get away he did.

Once he was sure everyone was suitably distracted by their epic staredown he slowly slinked away until shadows enveloped him and he completely disappeared from their sight. 

It was a couple of hours (broken noses and bruised shins) later that they finally stopped bickering long enough to realize he was gone. By then Alex had gleefully divulged the whole story to Tom and they were in the middle of a very intense poker game while sitting at the top of a water tower, when someone climbed the ladder behind them. Alex was shocked upon discovering Dr. Three found them so soon. 

“But I don’t have my ankle bracelet on anymore!” he exclaimed, uncaring about how his whining made him sound like a toddler.

Three just looked at him. “Did you think that was the only way we had to keep tabs on you? Scorpia learns from mistakes, and while Invisible Sword was indeed a failure, we kept technology. You should also learn from past experiences, especially since we administered it the same way as last time - there is truly no such thing as a standard injection, you know?”

Alex felt like screaming. However, since it wouldn’t help his case, he just took a deep breath, sat back down, and calmly invited his professor to join the game. This way he had at least some hope to get something out of the whole thing, and playing with Tom for money got boring pretty quickly since he was a) terrible at poker and b) didn’t have a lot of money. Playing with The Good Doctor at least meant he would be challenged. “Cassie is looking at you again!” Tom nudged Alex.

Alex was pointedly not looking in the direction Tom was pointing to. As if it wasn't enough that the whole school thought he was on drugs and/or that Gordon was his father, now he had to deal with a fangirl on top of everything. The girl was always looking at him and fluttering her eyelashes. He tried everything to let her know he wasn’t interested (everything, that is, except literally going up to her and saying it to her face, since she never said anything to him directly, and it would be slightly too presumptive of him to do so; that was one of The Countess’ lessons), but she just wouldn’t get a hint. He was seriously contemplating just forgetting all about etiquette just so he could say it to her face and solve the problem once and for all, but he didn’t want The Countess to decide he also needed extra lessons in her subject.

Not to mention the fact that she also saw that Cassie was interested in him and told him in no uncertain terms that he was to treat the situation as if it was a mission and he wasn’t supposed to make a spectacle out of himself.

But it wasn't just her. He really could do without Gordon’s running commentary and a plethora of dirty jokes that he seemingly had an unending supply of. At least, he thought, it couldn’t get any worse.

Unfortunately, he was wrong. 

It was two days later and Tom was waiting for Alex to join him in the cafeteria after their new biology teacher held him back after class. It was nothing unusual for professors to keep Alex after class, but it usually took ten minutes at the most, and he was getting slightly worried after Alex didn’t show up half an hour later. 

He decided to go and check what was taking him so long. 

When he arrived in the classroom, the professor was just leaving. “Looking for Mr. Rider?” he asked him.

Tom nodded. “Yes, he didn’t come to the cafeteria and -”

“Oh, don’t worry, everything is fine,” the professor waved off his concerns, struggling not to drop some anatomical model and a stack of papers that he was carrying. “He’s still in the classroom, it appears the topic of our conversation had a big impact on him,” were his parting words as he headed down the corridor and left Tom standing there.

Tom just stared after him for a couple of moments, and then entered the classroom. He wasn’t prepared for the sight in front of him. Alex was sitting at one of the desks, blankly staring at the wall. It didn’t look like he registered Tom’s arrival at all. He slowly neared the desk. 

“Alex? Are you okay?”

It didn’t look like Alex heard him at all. Tom was getting more and more concerned. He waved a hand in front of his face and when that didn’t work slapped him. That seemed to do the trick.

“Tom?” Alex’s eyes slowly focused on him.

“Is everything alright? You were just sitting here staring at the wall. Doc said you were fine but-” he didn’t get any further because Alex shot up. 

“You say Dr. Three? Is he still here?” he whispered frantically.

Now Tom was concerned. “No, he left just as I arrived. He had his hands full of some stuff and said you were having trouble processing whatever you were talking about.”

Alex shivered. “Tom… If you ever cared about me you won’t mention this to me ever again. Ever.”

Now Tom was concerned. He didn’t know everything about their new teachers, but Alex dropped enough hints to know that they were dangerous. “Did he threaten you?” he asked, careful not to trigger him again.

“Threaten?!” Alex let out a hysteric little laugh. “No, it was a completely new form of psychological torture.” He looked around as if expecting Three to jump from the shadows.

Once he was sure they were alone, he took a breath. “Try not to delve on this too much, but… remember when your parents gave you The Talk.” Tom shivered. His memories of that particular moment were still way too fresh, especially since he had to sit through it twice because his parents didn’t believe the other could have done it properly. Whatever happened, it must have been bad if Alex was comparing it to that. However, nothing prepared him for Alex’s next words.

“And now that you remembered, imagine getting said talk from a small Asian man who wants you to receive the best possible education in the area so he came equipped with every single diagram you ever say in health class along with diagrams. And you know you can’t just not listen to him because he’d know, and the consequences would be even worse than the lecture.”

He looked at Tom as he delivered the last line. “He also promised to test me on everything he just told me tomorrow after classes, meaning I can’t go and bleach my brain until tomorrow evening at the latest.”

All Tom could do was put his hand on Alex’s shoulder in silent commiseration. He would have made fun of his friend if his own experiences weren’t so horrible, but even that paled in comparison to what he just heard.  _ All things considered, Alex was holding up pretty well, _ was his last thought.

It was two days later when Alex almost successfully deleted the whole encounter with Dr. Three from his mind when Yassen stopped him in the hallway. 

“That girl in your class,” he said without preamble.

Alex just stared at him blankly. “What girl?” he asked.

“The one that was making cow eyes at you all the time and took your attention away from the lectures.” Here Alex wanted to correct him that it was Three’s actions that he was trying to forget that unfortunately hoarded his attention, but Yassen didn’t give him the opportunity, “I had a little chat with her. She won’t be a problem anymore.”

With that, he turned and walked away. Alex just stared at him. Did that just happen? Did Yassen deem a school girl a big enough threat to his studies that he threatened her?!

His question was answered later the same day when he arrived for his detention with Ross. His first words were unexpected, their delivery less so. 

“Looks like Cossack cockblocked you, Rider,” he laughed at his joke, and Alex was torn between thanking Yassen for saving him from any more jokes and asking him why on earth he waited long enough for Three to notice and give him The Talk. In the end, he decided for neither, both because he didn't want to relive the memories of the lecture and because it was never a good idea to give anyone in his world the idea that you owed them one.


	7. Career Meetings

**Chapter 7: Career Meetings**

**By: Valak**

* * *

Alex reluctantly walked into the room with Yassen at his back. His latest attempt to run from the insanity that had become his life had been short-lived. Yassen had seen him sprinting away from the school as he pulled up for the career conference. A faked hug and the liberal application of pressure point torture had found him escorted into the overly full room and settled in a chair of honor between Yassen and Jack.

“Who the hell invited Joe Byrne?!” Ross demanded. 

“Nobody, we’re the CIA we have spies everywhere,” the man shrugged simply from his place leaning by the door frame.

“Dammit, Walker!” 

“It wasn’t me!” The Texan protested but was unable to move further away from Gordon without putting himself closer to his former handler. 

“Look, I hate all of you but can we at least chuck ASIS out of here?” Alex interrupted tiredly.

The room stilled.

“Why?”

“It’s nothing, just a bit crowded and…”

“The hell did you do to make  _ Alex Rider  _ scared of you?” 

“I’m not scared of them!” Alex protested “They just…” he trailed off maybe bringing up his problem with Brooke wasn’t the brightest idea in a room full of overprotective assassins.

“They just, what, Alex?” Yassen’s tone was dangerously calm. Oh,  _ hell no _ he did  _ not  _ need this in his life.

“Nothing. It’s fine, they can stay.”

“You’re not getting off that easy. You’re in a room with SCORPIA, the CIA, MI6, and Yassen Gregorovich and the  _ Aussies  _ are the ones you have problems with?” 

“Shut up, Ross. Can we just get this shit show going?” He snapped.

_ “Language,  _ Alex. _ ”  _

“You’re not my _Dad_ , _Yassen.”_

“You are fortunate that I am not.” The man narrowed his eyes then turned to Brooke. “Since Little Alex is not forthcoming perhaps you would like to discuss the problem before I... remove you from the room.” 

There was the sound of a knife in a sheath.

“No knives!” He protested. “Nile isn’t even here to enjoy it!” and Jack was here and, honestly, he did not need more blood on his hands. 

“If you do not want blood spilled on your behalf then I suggest supplying the reason why you have an issue with Mr. Brooke.”

“And  _ how  _ is that supposed to help?”

“Alex.”

“Fine! He shoved me in an active minefield during a bombing and almost got me killed then recruited me to work with my Godfather.”

“Wait...the guy I shot?”

“Yes,  _ Ben  _ ‘the guy you shot’. Now can we  _ please  _ move on?”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Ross stated simply.

“Since when do intelligence agencies  _ ever  _ make sense?” Alex snapped.

“No, trying to get you killed as a recruiting pitch is pretty normal. What’s your problem with working with your Godfather?”

“How about he was a fucking  _ traitor _ and Brooke  _ knew _ it and used to me to expose him because he was too incompetent to…” Alex’s rant was cut off by a scream.

“Dammit, Yassen I said no. Fucking. Knives.” 

“I did not use a knife.”

“Bladed weapons count too.”

“Should have been more specific, little Alex.” Yassen mocked as he wiped the blade off in Brooke’s shirt.

“I think we can remove “attorney” from the list of potential career options.” Walker offered helpfully.

Alex rounded on Yassen again. “Can’t you kill him too?”

“No.” 

“Why the  _ hell _ not?”

“Because he is useful in keeping an eye on you and he annoys Gordon.”

“Can  _ I _ kill him?”

Yassen arched an eyebrow. “Of course, Alex. Should you wish to finally declare your colors as an assassin it would save us all the trouble of this meeting.

“Be the best day of my life too,” Gordon muttered from behind his flask.

Alex looked thoughtfully at the Texan. With his lack of sleep and annoyance at this meeting, the prospect was more tempting than he would ever admit to. “You would grade it, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course, every opportunity is a learning opportunity.” Dr. Three smiled serenely.

Alex sighed. “Congrats, you get to live another day, Walker.”

“Bollocks!” Gordon cursed.

“Are all parties ready to move on now?” It was the first time Mr. Carson, the career counselor had spoken and it wasn’t the terrified squeak of someone who had just witnessed a murder but the bored, put upon tone of someone who hated their job but it was too easy for them to bother looking for another. 

“Yeah” Alex sighed slumping into his chair. “Let’s get it over with.”

“Alright, why don’t we start with introductions? Your name, relationship to Alex, and maybe what you would like to see him pursue at the next level education or in the workforce?” The man looked to Blunt who was standing in the corner closest to him.

“Alan Blunt, Royal and General Bank…”

“Yassen just murdered a man and not a single one of you blinked. I think you can drop the ‘banking’ act.” Alex said dryly.

“Right,” he coughed, “Alan Blunt, head of MI6 I’m Alex’s handler…” he was interrupted by several disapproving snorts and coughs. 

“I swear to God! You’re the adults, control yourselves I’d like to get this meeting over with while I’m still young!” 

“Thank you, Alex,” he grimaced, suddenly regretting saying anything, “I, of course, think Alex should continue his career as a spy. A degree in political science would help tremendously.”

“Seconded!” The room turned “Joe Byrne, CIA, we’ve worked with Alex before. Could not agree more but maybe with an agency that doesn’t treat him like dog shit.”

“All intelligence agencies are the same, Alex.” Yassen counseled. “And a degree in political science is hardly useful in our field or the rest of the world for that matter.”

“And who are you?”

“Yassen Gregorovich.”

“And your relation to Alex?” The whole room tensed, waiting for an answer, even Alex was curious about what the assassin would come up with. 

“Mentor.” It was Jack, Alex looked over at her in betrayal. He wasn’t the only one. “What? He’s better than the rest of this lot. Besides, I don’t want a repeat of  _ that _ .” She pointed to Brooke’s still bleeding corpse.

“Thank you, Ms….?”

“Starbright, I’m Alex’s guardian,” Blunt coughed but she ignored him “I think Alex should have a nice, normal career. He wanted to be a footballer but, sweetie, you’re smart enough to do anything.” Alex flushed under the praise, ducking his head from the approving smiles of the assassins and intelligence agents around him. What was his life?

“I agree with Ms. Starbright,” Yassen said smoothly, favoring her with a smile. 

Was he…surely, he wasn’t flirting with Jack. Please, God, no. He looked to Jack who was blushing lightly and smiling back at him. “You know he killed Ian, right? And threw me in a ring with a bull? And killed like a million other people?”

“A million is hardly a fair representation.” Yassen frowned, Alex scowled back opening his mouth to respond but was interrupted by Mr. Carson.

“Alright, is there anyone else who would like to introduce themselves?”

“Jet, I am one of Alex's profes...teachers, and I believe he would have a bright future as a botanist.”

“Hardly, my dear, Alex is not patient enough for such endeavors but a career in the sciences, maybe as a doctor would be ideal for him - fast-paced, requires critical thinking, plenty of adrenaline even if your life isn’t the one on the line…” If it wasn’t  _ Dr. Three _ suggesting it, the idea might have merit. 

“Don’t be ridiculous? 8 years in classrooms would be a waste of Alex’s potential.” Blunt scoffed.

“Not in  _ my  _ classrooms.” Three said with narrowed eyes. 

“I’d rather go to Uni…” Alex interjected hesitantly.

“Quiet, Alex.” Blunt and Three said at the same time and the room devolved into shouting.

“You know what, I changed my mind. I’m going to be a homeless bum.”

“No, you’re not.” The entire room chorused.

Alex shut his mouth in shock. They had all agreed on something? MI6, SCORPIA, the CIA, Yassen Gregorovich, and  _ Jack _ had all agreed on something. Hell had frozen over or maybe this meeting was hell? Definitely that one. He needed to escape. If he tried to walk out they would probably tie him up but if he had an excuse…his eyes landed on Brooke. That could work. 

Gordon saw where he was going and held out a folded plastic sheet. He had come prepared. With good reason too. Alex ignored the arguments around him as he spread part of the sheet over Brooke then rolled the man onto the rest of it. Stealing binder clips to seal the edges. 

“See, look at how efficient he is with handling a body. Clearly, the markings of a future doctor.”

“Or a spy,” Blunt countered.

“Or a garbage man,” Alex shot back as he began pulling the body towards the door, “Since I’m hauling off your shit.” 

“Here I’ll get the door for ya, kid,” Ross said helpfully and Alex looked up at him with distrust but couldn’t turn it down without getting in trouble with Jack. 

Ross shut the door behind them “I’ll give you a 5-minute head start before I bring up that you’re missing. 

“Only 5?!” He’d have to hide from his professors, two intelligence agencies, and Yassen. 5 minutes was  _ not _ enough. 

“You’d get 10 but Walker is still alive. Correct that and I’ll see what I can do.”

“If I ‘correct that’ Yassen’s hauling me out to a cabin in Russia to make me into his clone. I’ll pass, thanks. 

Ross blanched, “Hell, kid, do us all a favor and pass on that. The last thing we need is two of Gregorovich running around.”

“Thought so. So... you’ll give me 10 minutes?”

“7 and a half and you have to take it to the dumpster first. I’ll have someone pick it up from there.” Alex flashed him a grateful smile “Less if you don’t get going now.” He hurriedly began dragging the body down the mercifully empty hallway. 

10 minutes later a thoroughly unruffled Yassen took Alex’s seat beside Jack who was clutching the arms of her chair in fear.

“He is fine, merely sleeping. I will bring him home once everything dies down if you would like to leave. I doubt there will be any more progress made as to Alex’s future in this meeting.”

Jack flashed him a relieved look “Thank you, Yassen. Would you, um...would you like to stay over for dinner?”

“Of course, I will ensure that Alex will be there. What time?”

“6, I, um...I’m not the best cook.”

“Then perhaps we will cook together? I’m sure with Alex running around there’s a lot to do at home. I’ll bring the ingredients, just relax and enjoy yourself until then.” He smiled.

Jack beamed at him and pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek and flounced out of the room to get ready. 


	8. Assassination Plot

**Chapter 8: Assassination Plot**

**By: Valak**

* * *

Alex’s schedule made it so he wasn’t at home a lot but now that Yassen and Jack were dating even the few hours he was at home were a nightmare. He couldn’t win. Yermalov was grinding his body into dust with his physical training and he had a perpetual headache from hours of regular class and individual instruction with his various professors. He couldn’t remember the last time he had done anything other than sleep, study, train, or eat, and with no end in sight, Alex was quickly reaching his breaking point. He needed it to stop but he couldn’t run, they would find him and it would just serve to make everything  _ worse _ and he couldn’t take himself out mainly because he didn’t have time which meant he needed someone else preferably someone who would miss and just land him in the hospital for a while which brought him to Gordon’s room holding a bottle of Ian’s best scotch. 

He set it on the man’s desk pointedly “I need Walker’s contact information.”

“Yassen has him following you, get it from him.” 

“Discreetly, so it can’t be traced back to me.”

“Why?”

“One of my classmates won’t drop the I’m your son thing. Intimidation tactics aren’t working. I can’t afford to get detention for fighting and I can’t kill them on my own without getting kidnapped by Yassen.”

“You could just give me a name and I’ll have it taken care of.”

“Oh, and how would  _ that _ look, Ross?” Alex snapped.

“Good point, but if you want them taken out I would go with literally anybody other than Walker. He’ll probably shoot himself on accident…. which may not be the worst idea…” 

“I can’t afford anyone else. MI6 doesn’t pay me.” Alex pointed out.

“You may not be able to afford Walker then. I doubt he’ll take a pixie stick and energy drink which seems to be all you have.”

“Shut up, Ross, I do have  _ some  _ money. At least give me the chance.”

Ross studied him. “You’re sure you want to do this?” Alex nodded eagerly. “Fine, I’ll email you the number to his contact you can deal from there.”

“Thank you,” Alex said stiffly and moved to take his seat.

Striking a deal with Walker was easier than he imagined he had negotiated him down to a pack of gum and a bouncy ball. Definitely in Alex’s price range. All he had to do was wait for Walker to take the shot during Yermalov’s class and he was out of here. Hopefully, he didn’t miss like the  _ last  _ SCORPIA assassin.

Just as he headed out for PE he heard his name called over the intercom and shot a despairing look out to the field. So close. Maybe if he hurried he could still get back in time for Walker to take the shot. He set off for D’Arc’s office at a jog and skidded to a stop just outside. 

“I’m gonna be late for Yermalov’s class and he….”

Alex’s words died as he took in the room in front of him. Yassen was there glaring openly at him, his arm on the shoulder of a crying Jack, Walker was standing awkwardly off to the side and it took everything in Alex’s very limited self-control not to strangle the Yankee bastard.

“What’s all this?” He tried innocently. 

“Alex. We know. There’s no reason to pretend…” Yassen began only to be interrupted by Jack.

“Alexander John Rider how  _ could you _ ?! Suicide?! What is wrong with you?! Everyone here just wants to help and then you go and—” she was sobbing again. 

Fuck. “Jack. I’m sorry I…”

“You what, Alex?”

“I shouldn’t have done it.” 

“Then why did you? You have good grades, and friends, and teachers that care about you, and MI6 isn’t using you and you have  _ me _ .”

“I know I have you Jack and I’m grateful for it but…”

“But what?! What more could you want?”

“Sleep? Not being trained by terrorists for 14 hours a day, more if they’re feeling particularly sadistic, not being fought over by them like a toy?! I’m  _ tired  _ and I need a  _ break _ and no one  _ listens _ to me when I tell them that!”

“So, you wanted to  _ kill yourself _ ?!” Jack demanded.

“In my defense, I hired Walker so I was pretty sure he would miss and I would just get to sleep it off in the hospital. Speaking of what the hell, Walker, you had one job. And it was breaking my neck.”

“Yassen paid me more.”

“How much?” Alex demanded with narrowed eyes.

“A yoyo.” All of his pent-up anger snapped and he tried to leap across the desk only to be grabbed by the Russian and slammed back in the chair “I was even going to not fight you at all!”

“Bastard,” he snarled.

“Alex watch your language. There are children nearby,” D’Arc admonished.

“None of my classmates are here.” 

“Walker and Ross are and they’re children.” 

“Ross? Did you rat me out too?” 

“Nah, Walker did it all on his own, most useful he’s ever been, to be honest.”

“Walker, the  _ moment  _ I’m out of their sight I am going to kill you and they will never be able to find your body.”

“Solid threat, Alex but not enough specifics. C plus.”

“I swear to  _ Christ _ , Gordon now is  _ not the time! _ ’ Alex snarled.

“Actually, given you’ll be under suicide watch for the next several  _ weeks  _ I’d say it’s a perfect time.”

“I... What?” Alex said blankly.

“Surely you did not think we would let this cry for attention go unanswered, Alex? We need to make sure you’re safe and while Jack is a  _ fantastic  _ guardian,” Yassen squeezed her shoulder supportively earning a watery smile from her and a gag from Alex “You need a stronger hand. So we’ve made up a room for you here. Nothing sharp, nothing dangerous, and of course, no chance of escape. Steiner will meet with you daily as will the rest of your professors and Jack, of course, when she is free.” Alex resolved to kill him too even if he failed nothing could be worse than this. 

It was Ross who broke away. “Now come on, we’ll go get you fitted with your jacket and you can take some time to cool down while we talk with you, individually of course.” 

“Fuck off,” Alex said, gathering himself to fight.

“You can get knocked out or you can walk on your own.” Alex nodded sullenly and waited until they were in the hallway before he struck out at Ross but he felt a prick at his neck at the same time. 

“Nice try, kid but I’m not that dumb or drunk.”

His mind felt fuzzy and he pitched to the side only to be caught by Ross. “The fuck did you hit me with?” 

“Mild sedative, not enough for me to have to carry your ass but enough to settle you down. With the talks, you have coming your way, you can thank me later.”

“What talks?”

“Talks about you trying to kill yourself, you think you can just do that without anyone saying a word to you?”

“You people have been trying to kill me for  _ months _ .”

“It started that way but now we’re training you and then you go and try and kill yourself?!” Ross sounded legitimately angry at that. Which was surprising. And it was complete and utter bullshit.

“You kill yourself with alcohol like every day.”

“Slowly, much more socially acceptable. Didn’t see me bitching about your caffeine addiction.”

“Actually, you did.” Alex pointed out as he was herded into what had used to be a supply closet. Middle of the school, no windows, vent bolted over the door that would be a bitch to get out from, but not impossible. It was doable if given enough time and something to pick the lock.

“Alright so fuck off I care about you and I don’t care about myself just get better alright?”

“If you people had left me alone in the first place then we wouldn’t fucking be here.” He snapped.

“Yeah, well you’d probably be dead because of MI6 so you’re welcome.”

“Given I just tried to get myself  _ assassinated _ I obviously wouldn’t have minded that.” 

“You know what Rider. I’m sending Gregorovich in. Maybe he can talk some sense into you.” He slammed the door shut behind him and Alex heard a lock engaged. Electronic. Fuck. Gordon had probably covered it, though, he would just need time to inspect it. 

Alex carefully searched the room. He needed something thin and sharp but whoever had been responsible had cleared it pretty good. He looked up from where he was on the ground when the door opened again. Yassen. He didn’t even bother getting up, just went back to searching.

“You won’t find anything, I checked the room myself.”

“Bully for you,” he snapped.

“Alex.” Yassen chastised. 

“What?!”

“I would like you to take a seat so we can have a discussion.”

“That’s nice.” 

Yassen narrowed his eyes. “I can incentivize your participation.”

He knew what that meant and, honestly, he just wanted to get this over with. 

“Fine, what do you want?”

“Alex...I know things have been…. difficult.” he huffed, that was an understatement “However,” the man stressed, obviously angry “That it is no excuse for your actions. Suicide is not an option.”

“You kill people for a living, you don’t get to take the moral high ground here.”

“If we were discussing my life I would agree but we are not...Alex, despite what you may believe...I do care about you.”

“No, you care about getting into Jack’s pants.”

“Alex,” he snapped.

“What? You’re here for pussy points. Don’t pretend like it’s anything it’s not.”

“Alex,” the man growled. “I took a bullet for you…”

“And now you’re sleeping with my housekeeper so you can fuck right off with that.”

“If it is a problem then we will break it off.”

“What?”

“If us being together is some evidence to you that we do not care for you then we will not be together.”

The fuck. 

“No, it’s fine, whatever,” Alex murmured. He so did not want to deal with this right now. 

“Alex.”

“No, you don’t fucking get it,  _ Yassen.  _ It’s not about you! I’m just really fucking tired _. _ ” 

The man arched an eyebrow “I literally played reverse Russian Roulette with my life when I thought everyone had betrayed me. I don’t care how  _ tired _ you are. There’s no excuse for you when you’re surrounded by people who want you to succeed.” Well, that was fucking news.

“You’re killing me.” He pointed out. 

“So maybe we  _ aggressively _ care for you but it is still there so you will merely have to deal with it because you will not be getting away from it.” And that wasn’t terrifying. 

Yassen seemed to appreciate his horrified look and just nodded leaving the room.

Dr. Three stopped by not long after, he didn’t even bother taking a seat, obviously intending to keep it short so he could go back to torturing whatever student had pissed him off in class. “I don’t blame you, Alexander it is likely the result of a chemical imbalance in the brain from physical exhaustion and several other factors.” Holy shit. Someone fucking reasonable. It was a miracle. Maybe he should have gone to Three first, he was a doctor he may have stepped in and helped. Why hadn’t he? “But if you try something like this again I will make you  _ want _ to live.” Oh yeah? He was a murdering psychopath. Alex just gave a shaky nod and Three smiled “We’ll work on it together, of course, Alex. Don’t worry.” He got a pat on the head and then the man was gone. Thank fuck.

Jet and Yermalov came together. Jet’s eyes were rimmed red and she kept sniffling into the tissue and he felt almost as bad for upsetting her as he did for upsetting Jack because out of the SCORPIA professors Jet was the nicest, in that she didn’t wake him up if she found him sleeping in the greenhouse and that was more than he could ask. Enduring 30 minutes of her tearfully recounting how wonderful Alex was and what a brilliant student he was and how the world would miss a mind as bright as his like she was speaking at his wake while Yermalov just grunted approvingly next to her was  _ not _ helping his suicidal urges. They were helped even less when Jet got up to leave Yermalov leaned over and said that he would make Alex cry for every tear Jet shed over him. “It’s 74. I will see you on the sparring mats.”

In the end, he had just been left in his new room to wonder what the fuck was wrong with all of these people. Clearly, there was something in the water. He should get that checked the moment he got out. If he got out.


	9. Alex Runs Away, Again

**Chapter 9: Alex Runs Away, Again**

**By: wolfern**

* * *

Left alone again, Alex decided he had no one left to thank for his predicament except himself. So, he did. “Thanks,” he said. Took a breath. “You’re welcome.” He felt slightly better. Maybe this was what they meant when people said they went traveling and found themselves. It only took… well, it had taken a lot to get to this point. Somehow, he didn’t think the general population went around arranging their own assassinations, even if such options were available. But that wasn’t the point.

Speaking of points, he needed something pointy to lockpick his way out. Once again, he reviewed the room: four walls, a door, some shelving that looked like they had been designed specifically to avoid damage from unruly teenagers locked in cupboards. He felt a moment of sympathy for Harry Potter. Alas, he was at his wit’s end which was, while definitely pointed and not at all like Blunt’s, only figurative.

“Walls, walls, walls.” There was not much one could do with unadorned walls. He tried pushing against them, but nothing happened. They didn’t even close in on him. At least then that would have been  _ interesting.  _ Then he tried to tap a secret code, which resulted in nothing but sore knuckles. So he knuckled down to thinking some more. Staring at his surroundings, he feared he was becoming wall-eyed _.  _ “ _ You’re my wonderwall…”  _ he muttered. What was a wonderwall; was it a wall of wonders, or a wall that blocked wonders, like a dam? “Damn,” he said. That was pretty deep.

There was a knock at the door. “Who’s there?” Alex cried. Had they been listening? He  _ knew  _ they’d injected him with nanos at the same time as their vaccinations with Invisible Sword. Was there a way to reprogram nanos once they were in the bloodstream?

“It’s Ross.”

Alex frowned. Walker would have been more ideal. “Ross, who?”

“Ross Gordon. I mean, Gordon Ross.”

“What do you want?”

“Booze. No, wait, I mean –”

“Boo. Boo to you and your nanos!” Alex crossed his arms. He did not pout.

“What?”

“What?”

“What – no, I mean, I’ve brought you booze.”

“Well, I don’t want you to boo me. Go away.” Even if he didn’t want to be locked in a cupboard, he didn’t want the company while he was trying to contemplate his existence.

“Booze,” repeated the voice, a note of exasperation slipping in. “ _ Alcohol. _ ”

Alex’s head hurt. “What for?”

“For you.”

“I’m not a What, I’m a Who.”

“What?”

“No, who.”

“Me. You. Booze.”

“… Why?”

There was a pause. “I was thinking about what you were saying, earlier.”

“That I’m not your son?”

“No! No, I was thinking about what you said. About killing yourself. And how I said my drinking was socially accepted. And I thought, well, I believe that everyone has the right to die. And that’s why I work for SCORPIA –”

“To kill people who don’t want to die?”

“Err… To fulfill everybody’s right to die.”

“That’s, uh, kind of you.”

“…Yeah. Listen, kid, if I open the door to give you the booze, will you promise not to run away?”

“Will you open the door if I say no?”

“Probably not.”

Did Alex want booze? Not really. What he wanted was some caffeine. He wasn’t used to functioning with a normal heart rate. He needed at least six energy drinks a day to function, dammit! Did he want to hurt Ross’s feelings by refusing his kind gesture? Yes. But also, something was better than nothing, and at the moment Alex was in an empty room. Empty except for himself. He wondered what that meant for him – did that mean, he was empty inside, and that’s why he thought the room was empty? Maybe the booze would help his thoughts schmooze. Maybe it would poison the nanos in his blood. “Fine.”

Walker may have been slow, mentally – but Ross was a sprinter, physically. In the blink of an eye, or rather two eyes (Alex’s), the door had opened and closed, and the booze deposited unceremoniously before him. If Alex was a can of beer, he would’ve appreciated some more ceremony. As it was, Alex was unable to escape. But now he was two cans of alcohol stronger. Or weaker. He stomped in frustration. “Ugh!”

“Sorry, kid.”

Alex felt his cheeks heat up. “I thought you’d left.”

“Nah. But I’m going now.”

“Okay.” 

“Okay.”

“…You gone now?”

“Not yet.”

“Now?”

There was no answer. Alex felt the weight of a non-existent gaze from the bare walls.

Even if he didn’t want to admit it, the stomping had helped Alex’s feelings. He stomped again. Maybe if he kept stomping, he’d eventually not care that he was stuck.

Or not. He stomped again, hoping that at least the floors were thin and he was causing someone below a headache. Caught up in his podic bacchanalia, he didn’t notice the trajectory of his foot until it encountered resistance in the form of the can of beer. Resistance was futile. The can crumpled and split, spraying a foam of beer all over his shoes and socks.

Alex would have been unhappy, except that he’d already been unhappy, and now – as people often found with alcohol – he’d had an idea. Carefully, he pried the can apart like ripping a piece of paper, but more metallic and stickier with beer. He felt a moment of regret for the spilled beer, but it was no use crying over it. He tore the bottom of his shirt, which was like tearing paper, but more clothy. All in all, his yield was several shreds of aluminum, and a strip of shirt fabric, which he wrapped around each end of the metal strips. The thinnest strip of metal, he carefully rolled and then inserted into the door lock. It took a couple of tries, and some bending of his makeshift lock pick, but eventually he picked the lock. It picked gratefully.

As he exited the room, he looked right, left, then right again, and then tiptoed quickly down the corridor. It looked a bit like how gymnasts sprint with their toes first, but far less graceful. Several turns later, he reached the rear of the school. Luckily, the car park was just outside. He didn’t want to continue his tip-toe-sprint for too long, and not in public. It was tiring, and what was more, he felt quite ridiculous doing it.

It didn’t take long for him to break into a car. He did so by kicking the front until the bonnet popped open. His eyes went straight to the car battery. His hands and the beer can strips, also went to the car batteries. “I’ll na-No  _ you  _ no longer,” he muttered, as he touched each pointy-bit of the battery with a metal strip in each hand.

If he’d had any nanos in his blood, they were probably fried. Unfortunately, it felt as if everything else in his body had also been fried in the process.

With a vague sense of regret, Alex passed out.

“Maybe I should call you Bernie… Then it could be like Weekend at Bernie’s, but I guess it’s not a weekend either….”

Alex awoke.

Beside him, Tom was muttering. “Like how even did that movie work? Come to think of it, how even did this whole thing work?”

“Plot progression,” said Alex’s mouth.  _ It’s too bright _ , said Alex’s eyes, which squinted.

“What?”

Alex’s brain caught up. “Where are we? What happened?”

Tom looked down at him, from beneath the shade of the large umbrella that overshadowed both of them with competence. With sardonic slowness, he lifted his sunglasses to improve the effectiveness of his condescending gaze. The gaze fell on Alex much like a condescending, which is to say, Tom’s gaze seemed to land like a cat’s disdainful grace upon Alex, the ground. It was very effective. Alex had seen Tom practice it often using mirrors he placed on the floor for such occasions. “We’re in Italy,” the dark-haired teen eventually said. “It’s the summer hols. I found you in the carpark.” As if that explained everything, which he supposed it did.

“Where’s Jerry?” asked Alex.

“He’s off being catfished.”

“That rat!”

“No, mouse.”

“Aren’t I good enough for you?” James Hale’s voice came from behind Alex. It wiggled around Alex’s prone form to enter his ears. Alex turned his head to look at his friend.

“Nah, bro, you’re good,” said Tom.

“Thank you, brother,” said James, slapping him on the back. “Well, my job’s done, so I’m going to take my leave.” He stood up and left to the right.

“I need a coffee,” said Alex, but his body disobeyed his wishes and refused to move.

Tom brightened. For a moment Alex was concerned his friend had become radioactive, and then he realized it was just because Tom was smiling, and his teeth were very white. “You’re in luck,” said Tom. “We’re in the land of espresso!”

“I didn’t know Luck was a city in Italy…”

It being summer and Italy, many people were milling about. That is not to say that people were grinding anything (although, some people were grinding, which is to say they were using the app Grindr) but rather the city – Montpelier, it turned out, not Luck – was quite crowded. Not quietly crowded. Thus, as Alex and Tom perambulated with their coffees, they were carried along by the Brownian motion of the crowds.

One of the lesser-known facts of Physics is that Brownian motion is not truly random. There is one force stronger than even the Strong Force (which has nothing to do with Brownian motion, but it just shows how strong this other force is). Some people are more sensitive to this Stronger Force, and Alex, being a particularly sensitive soul, had felt it all his life. This force is called Luck. Which is neither good, nor bad, but just Is.

Under the influence of Luck, Alex and Tom found themselves carried into proximity of a television camera crew which, as it happened, was filming a live program about tourists in Italy. Now, they were not center stage. But Alex, who should have been a physicist with how well he understood his luck, understood that someone in SCORPIA would see them live and alive. And he became very nervous.

(In fact, it was Doctor Three who saw the program because doctors always have a television in their waiting rooms. It’s a rule.)

“Tom, we have to leave urgently,” urged Alex, urgently.

“Okay,” said Tom. He was used to Alex’s urges.

“Fetch James.”

“Okay,” said Tom again. In the blink of an eye (four, rather: Alex’s and Tom’s) James Hale had joined them again.

“We’re leaving urgently,” said Tom.

“We’re going to Berlin,” said Alex.

“Okay,” said James, a testament to his friendship.

And then James became Jameses, which is to say that in Berlin there were now two: Hale and Sprintz. This took some time: first, they had to find disguises to create fake IDs to buy tickets for a train and several other avenues of transport as red herrings, and then they had to board the train, change their disguises, and perform this ritual three or more times.

It was truly a relief when they finally arrived in Berlin, walked some distance to an abandoned alleyway, and met James Sprintz, who provided them with new luggage and a car complete with a driver, who drove them some way out of the city.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said, unlocking the staff entrance to his mansion. 

“Did you miss me?” said Alex, touched.

“Not really,” said James (Sprintz). “Social media exists, you know. I talk to you every day. No, I’m glad you’ve come to keep my house company. Giant houses get lonely, you know. That’s why they get ghosts. I’d rather have live people than ghosts in my house.”

“I would too,” Tom admitted.

“I wouldn’t,” said Alex. “Ghosts don’t go and die in a plane crash. Or fake-car-crash.”

“There, there,” James patted Alex on the shoulder.

“Hear, hear,” said James (Hale).

“So what are we doing in Berlin, then?” said Tom.

Alex stretched his arms. “Well I don’t know about you, but right about now, I think a bath seems good.”

“Great,” said James Sprintz. “I’ve got twenty. Well, my dad does. But I can show you them all, and you can choose, and then we can go hang out.”

Tom and James (Hale) seemed to have boundless energy, but Alex rubbed his face. “Get me some caffeine with that bath and we’ll see how I feel then.”

Of course, while the friends made tracks, they were also making – well, leaving – tracks. And Yassen had a track record, which is to say, he recorded the tracks they made and tracked them down. Being so notorious these days, it was easier for him to skip the whole air-security debacle, and instead, he sailed his private yacht to a secluded spot along the coast of Poland. From there, he borrowed a car and crossed to the border into Germany. Unfortunately, like Alex, he was sensitive (to luck, among other things) and luck had decreed that he had been followed by the DGSE, or the French Intelligence (they preferred a name that didn’t set them standards).

Yassen caught Alex in a coffee-shop-by-day-bar-by-night, in the middle of a double-shot-espresso with extra Redbull – a habit he had taken to each morning as James, James, and Tom slept off the night before. Alex didn’t have time to sleep it off – he had to focus on what he was going to do next with the mess that was his life. Shuffling off the mortal coil hadn’t worked, so now the strategy he was developing was to throw himself into the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that he was now so familiar with.

“Perhaps you should take it easy.”

Alex looked towards the assassin, trying to move slowly and not twitch. “Perhaps you should leave me alone.”

The assassin picked up the empty can of Redbull and moved it to the side. “This sort of thing is not good for you.”

“Redbull gives you wings, don’t you know? Maybe if I could fly, I could avoid annoying bastards like you.”

Yassen didn’t have to sign to show how he felt. “If you continue like this, you will get your wings because you will be dead.”

“Aw,” sneered Alex. “You think I’ll be an angel?”

“ _ Sasha. _ ”

“ _ Yashka.  _ Where are your dogs? _ ” _

The Russian’s nostrils flared. “I thought you would appreciate no entourage. And it is less conspicuous –”

“Ha! Less conspicuous than –”

There was a great big bang.

By instinct and lightning reflex, Alex and Yassen found themselves holed up behind the bar of the hole-in-the-wall bar that hadn’t been a hole in the wall until Yassen and the DGSE had come along. While Yassen was pretty much always armed to the teeth, literally (Alex wouldn’t have been shocked if he’d had an exploding fake tooth for special emergencies), Alex had taken to the lifestyle of Berlin, and, well, there wasn’t much one could hide on their body when they weren’t wearing much. He had only a Walther PPK which held six rounds. He had about twenty-four bullets. 

Luckily, there was a bar fridge next to Alex, filled with cans of Redbull. Well, projectile weapons were always useful, and he hated to see energy go to waste… As Yassen exchanged shots with the DGSE, Alex also found himself exchanging shots – that is to say, he was taking shots (of energy drinks) and taking shots (with the gun).

“Why are you so troublesome,” grumbled Yassen (though he would deny he ever grumbled, and grumble complaints that anyone would think that he did).

Alex rolled his eyes, sensing a Lecture, and then winced because his eye-roll had skewed his aim so that he shot the roof above them. “Stop giving me shit,” he moaned.

“Me giving you shit,” said Yassen, “You are giving  _ me  _ shit! You are a shit stain in my life!”

“Um,” said Alex. “Ew?”

Yassen silently radiated regret. Alex forgave him. English wasn’t his first language, after all.

“Don’t worry,” said Alex. “I understood.”

Yassen was silent (although his gun was not). “Shit is important,” he said eventually, as though to keep the conversation flowing.

“For fertilizer, if nothing else,” agreed Alex.

“Fertilizer makes good bombs.”

They continued shooting in amicable loudness.

“You are losing your touch,” said Yassen, apropos of nothing. “You were easy to follow.”

“You know, I evaded all of you for like two months,” Alex said. “Maybe you’re losing  _ your _ touch.”

“I am not.”

“Maybe that’s why your heart is so numb.”

“Hearts don’t have sensory nerve endings.”

“You don’t know that – you don’t even have a heart.”

“You don’t know where hearts are, judging by your aim,” said Yassen. “You should stop drinking.”

“I’m not drinking,” said Alex. “I’m shooting.” And he took a shot (from the gun) before taking another shot (from the fridge). “Anyway, I’m hitting what I want to hit.”

“That’s not the point.”

“You’re right, the point is Me,” said Alex, pointedly. “What’re you going to do with me?”

“When?”

“Now. Or tomorrow. Or when I run out of shots.” Alex’s heart was pounding, and it wasn’t from the adrenaline of the shootout, or the caffeine from the energy drinks. Or maybe it was a combination of both, plus… He didn’t want to admit –

“Now, I am going to ignore you and finish this fight. Tomorrow, I don’t know.”

His heart was beating strongly. His head spun, as his lips and fingers numbed. He looked to the side at Yassen and then watched as his vision went sideways. No, that was just his body.

Yassen’s eyes briefly flickered to Alex laying on the floor, and then back to the scattered DGSE.

“You’d better finish up quickly,” mumbled Alex.

Yassen emptied the magazine, and then calmly placed his gun on the floor. From somewhere obscured from Alex’s darkening vision, he extracted the components of an RPG-7.

As his vision faded against an orange glow, and he felt the ground shudder, Alex hoped this time it would turn out to all be a dream.

But it was not, and he just  _ knew _ they were going to try weaning him off the drinks.


	10. Druggy Rumors (continued)

**Chapter 10: Druggy Rumors (continued)**

**By: pusheen**

* * *

Alex was summoned back to Brooklands at 6 am on Saturday for a vague character-building activity. When he entered the chemistry lab at 6:01 am, he was utterly unsurprised to find out that he was the only student in the room, probably the school. He had long since grown accustomed to the special treatment from his “teachers”.

“Late again, Alex?” Gordon Ross was sitting at the teacher’s bench at the front of the room, looking unfairly well-rested and put together for such an unearthly hour. It appeared a casual weekend dress for him was a jacket and a dress shirt. Maybe he had plans for the afternoon? At least he had dispensed with a tie.

“I was informed I had to come in less than six hours ago! That’s hardly fair!” Alex huffed. He had barely gotten five hours of sleep and decided he had a right to be a little annoyed.

Ross chuckled. “Character building is important. And it seems like yours could use a little work. Life is hardly fair, Alex.”

Rationally, Alex knew that there was no way he was going to win this argument, but the bratty teenager in him decided to keep going. He opened his mouth, ready to rebut with how growing teenagers required at least seven hours of sleep and how his life only started becoming a lot more unfair with Ross’ reappearance when someone at the back of the room cleared their throat.

Alex’s head whipped upwards to look for the source of the offending noise when he realized that Yassen, Professor Yermalov, Jet, The Countess, and Doctor Three were sitting in the shadows at the back of the room. Yermalov’s well-built frame looked especially comical folded into a chair meant for a fourteen-year-old. Like Ross, all of them looked perfectly unaffected by the early hour. Alex’s eyes narrowed slightly at the sight of them, his argument was forgotten.

Gordon Ross clapped his hands together to draw his attention. “As we were discussing, Alex, the matter of your character. Please pee into that cup.” He gestured at an empty plastic cup sitting on the desk in front of him. 

“What?!” Alex spluttered.

“Yes, Alex. Drug test time,” Ross gave him a sheepish grin. “You see, the druggie rumors have surfaced again. We care for you, Alex. We want to be sure that you’re not doing drugs.”

Alex scowled. “I told you I wasn’t. It’s because of all the energy drinks I’ve been drinking. As a chemistry teacher, you should know they’re a diuretic, which means…” Alex launched into an explanation of how the caffeine in energy drinks worked to make him urinate more frequently; his detailed explanation of how the compounds interacted at the molecular level would have impressed even a chemistry professor, except Gordon Ross was not a chemistry expert outside of explosives, and he merely managed to look a little confused.

There was a moment of silence once Alex finished his explanation, broken only when Doctor Three stood up and started walking towards the front of the room, staring intently at Alex. “I wasn’t aware of the extent of this energy drink business. Perhaps it might be more beneficial to do a hair analysis instead…”

Alex stifled a groan. There was no winning this; it appeared that the universe wanted him to do some sort of drug test this morning. “Fine. I’ll do whatever drug test you want me to do. Just tell me, what did I ever do to deserve all of your tender love and care?”

The Countess went first. “You have so much potential, Alex.”

Jet shrugged. “We care about you, Alex. You're fourteen. You shouldn’t be working for MI6. But if you had to, you should have as many skills as you can have.”

Yassen raised an eyebrow at him. “John would kill us if we did nothing whilst knowing what MI6 was doing to you.”

Dr. Three stared at Alex for a long moment. “We’re investing in your future, Alexander. Such a bright young child… I hope you will work for us one day.”

It was finally Gordon Ross’s turn. “Look, kid. We do care about you. We wanted revenge at first but… you’re a good kid. You’re fun to teach, and when we realized our presence scared MI6 off, we had to stay!”

Alex stared at each of them in turn. “Are you all drunk?”

To his surprise, Yassen’s brows furrowed and Ross facepalmed. “Jesus, kid. MI6 did fuck you up bad. You know you can just take a fucking compliment, right?”

Alex blushed a little at that. It wasn’t so bad, was it? And what was with the adults and their condescending attitude towards his zero sugar energy drinks? Alex was already seeing so many gains, and he wasn’t going to stop now.

After some negotiation on Alex’s part, it was agreed that Jet would give him a haircut so Doctor Three could get a hair sample. At the time, she seemed like the least likely person who would attempt to cut his hair with a combat knife. As they walked towards Jet’s greenhouse, Alex had the sudden realization that gardening shears could be a pretty lethal weapon as well.

Alex took a sip of his drink from a mason jar, hoping the vodka in his cocktail (we are being generous with the definition of "cocktail” here) would calm his nerves.

“What are you drinking?” Jet turned to look at him.

“Uhh,” Alex started. “Some coffee, Redbull, Monster Zero Sugar, gin, a twist of lemon. Would you like to try?”

Jet arched an eyebrow at him. Alex was slightly amused to note that her eyebrows could communicate almost as well as Yassen’s. That amusement didn’t last long. Jet continued walking at a brisker pace. This time when she spoke, she didn’t bother looking at Alex or hiding her disdain.

“That’s the most disgusting, sorry excuse for a drink I’ve ever heard. Where on earth did you get the inspiration for such a drink from?!”

“Gordon Ross?” Alex suggested helpfully.

“Did he tell you about fourloko?” Jet sighed. “He loves to tell me about his time in uni, drinking fourloko and cramming for his exams.”

Alex grinned. “Something like that, yeah.”

Jet wanted to scream. Instead, she counted to ten and suggested a list of natural, plant-based alternatives to replace Alex’s fourloko-like concoction, which Alex politely accepted. Jet had a suspicious feeling that it was mostly empty platitudes, and she resolved to make him a fresh cuppa from the plants in her greenhouse after his haircut to convince Alex that herbal remedies could be tasty and cool too.

Wednesday saw Alex back in the chemistry lab again, this time in the glorious company of his classmates. The learning objectives of the day’s lesson was qualitative analysis, with a focus on plastic explosives. Alex noted that Gordon Ross had what looked like concealer smeared over a bruise on his right eye. He glared at Alex as he limped back and forth across the classroom to help the other students with their experiments. Each time, Alex grinned back at him and raised his mason jar in a toast. He just knew that Ross’ animosity was related to his conversation with Jet over the weekend.

Alex was just starting to wonder how many combat knives it would take to cut the tension between himself and Ross when Yassen materialized at the door to the classroom.

“There’s been a family emergency,” Yassen told Ross. “I need to take Alex out of class for the day.”

Alex gleefully swept his books into his backpack, waving goodbye to his lab partner as he followed Yassen outside.

“What’s up?” Alex asked.

Yassen turned to glance at him. “Status meeting. We’re going to the principal’s office.”

Alex smirked. “That sounds like trouble. Am I in trouble?”

Yassen didn’t respond to his question directly. “I’m still recovering from the last time I bailed you out of jail, Alex Rider.”

“My bail wasn’t that expensive,” Alex retorted, rolling his eyes. “I wasn’t even accused of murder like my dad!”

“Uh-huh. And putting four men in the hospital is so much better.”

“They were racist assholes! I was being a responsible member of society!”

The door to the principal’s office was open, and D’Arc smiled as Yassen and Alex stepped inside.

“Yassen! Alex! So nice of you to join us,” D’Arc gestured towards a couple of empty seats in the room.

Doctor Three walked into the room and shut the door behind him.

“Alexander, we’re here to discuss your career options.” Doctor Three shuffled a few papers in front of him menacingly. “What would it take for you to be a responsible member of society…”

“I’d like to go back to my goal of alcoholism, please,” Alex responded sweetly.

“Status meeting” turned out to be code for what seemed like a never-ending meeting to discuss Alex’s drug test results and career goals. Alex was thoroughly unimpressed, but he was glad to learn the lesson that real-life meetings were hell. He made a mental note to ask “how many hours will I spend in meetings?” as part of any job interview going forward.

“Are we done yet?” Alex couldn’t resist blurting out at the three-hour mark.

Doctor Three smiled lazily. “That isn’t protocol, Alex.”

“Someone has to die before the meeting can conclude,” D’Arc explained helpfully. “It wouldn’t be proper otherwise. It’s a tradition.”

“What?” Alex almost yelled. “So, I have to kill someone and the meeting ends? This doesn’t jive with my career goal of being a responsible member of society!”

D’Arc smiled. “No, Alex. It is. You see, you’ll be saving the rest of us from an eternity in meeting hell.”

Alex groaned and rested his head in his hands. Wished he had simple alcohol in his bottle today, instead of his Ross-inspired cocktail. “Yassen, can you do something about this please…”


	11. Alex changes his wardrobe (and Crushes part 2!)

**Chapter 11: Alex changes his wardrobe (and Crushes part 2!)**

**By: PastryFudger**

* * *

There comes a time when any poor soul will crack under pressure. Well, pressure being career meetings with terrorists.

For Alex, this came in the idea of fashion. He arrived at school with makeup and new piercings, and then stick-and-poke tattoos, and then a new haircut, and along the way, his school uniform slowly became more and more of disarray of cloth and pins. He would roll his sleeves up, never had a tie, and soon was wearing just the blazer over different shirts and pants of his choice. He mostly seemed to be a huge middle finger to the staff, but they took offense in the wrong ways.

“Alex… please don’t tell me that’s a cheap polyester shirt.” Jet and Doctor Three happened upon him in the hallway, and he just frowned at them.

“What do you care?”

“I can always support healthy self-expression,” Three stated, and Alex stifled a laugh. “But this fashion is horrendously made. If you wish to dress like this, dress well.”

“That’s not the point of it,” Alex replied but was easily pulled out of the conversation by the bell. “Oh, would you look at that, class! Bye!”

He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was going to get bitten in the ass for something. He didn’t know what, but he knew it was happening.

Alex woke up like any other day, at about four in the morning, heading for a shower, brushing his teeth, and then opening his wardrobe to pick something to wear.

The only issue was, nothing in his wardrobe was the same. His darkest clothing was a royal blue turtleneck, and many button-up shirts were light grey. Everything else, however, was finely pressed and either adjacent to his uniform or was one of the three new uniforms hanging innocently on the rack.

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

He quickly started to rummage through the closet for any hint of his original clothes, but found nothing, and cursed thorough terrorist organizations. Even his small bits of jewelry were missing, which was rather annoying as he hadn’t yet gotten to wear all of them. His shoes had even been replaced with some bullshit custom made stuff, and as he wandered back towards the bathroom, his makeup had been replaced as well.

“You’ve got to be fucking  _ joking! _ ”

Alex arrived at school late, having had to fuck up the uniform on his own, and it was hardly enough for his preferences. He didn’t even go to class, marching right into the teachers’ lounge, where Ross was avoiding teaching. 

“Hey, there you are, we were almost about to dispatch a team to pick you up-”

Alex marched up and grabbed the man by his shirt collar. “What the fuck did you assholes do to my wardrobe?!”

“Woah, hey, calm down-”

After a short intermission of angry teen shouting and well-meaning terrorist dragging, everyone important was seated in D’Arc’s office for probably the fiftieth time by now. Alex looked and felt every bit the fuming child he was. 

“You assholes better have a good reason to replace my entire wardrobe.”

“We are not going to let you walk around looking like you just threw your clothing in a grinder,” Gordon snapped back. “You can dress well, so you should.”

“Or, consider this, I wear what I want to wear!”

“Not in this line of work!”

“Who said I was joining your line of work?!”

Gordon almost looked hurt. Almost. Alex didn’t take the time to care, though, and yelled at the rest of the group.

“And why do they fit me? Which of you fuckers drugged and measured me again?”

“Walker did,” Jet said with a shrug.

“This is the fifteenth time! I’ve had enough of this bullshit! It’s creepy!” 

He was standing now, trying to intimidate them, but he was still short and tiny and Gordon bit back a comment on him being like a growling puppy.

“Just ask me my size like normal people! It’s not that hard!”

“Would you even answer honestly?”

“If it meant you didn’t drug and measure me, yes!” Alex fought the urge to stomp his foot, but he was truly pissed. “I even bought that wardrobe with my own damn money, and it’s all just gone. What did you even do with it?”

Nile winced. “Uh. I can send you the ashes if you’d like?”

“Not to mention you replaced my clothing with some bullshit nerd clothing. I don’t dress like that.”

“Yes, you do! You were wearing immense amounts of black, just like Yassen!”

“Yeah, and Yassen is a nerd goth! I’m more of a jock goth! There’s a difference in style!”

“I don’t know what that means. Yassen, what does that mean?”

Yassen shrugged. “I don’t keep up with that sort of stuff.”

“Yassen, you’re fucking useless, get out of here.”

Yassen threw a knife at Ross, and D’Arc caught it with a disapproving look and pointed at the sign on the wall that stated ‘NO KNIVES IN SCHOOL (You know who you are)’, before turning to Alex and addressing him.

“Regardless, Alex, we will be expecting you to dress properly in school. Outside of school, you are free to go out and get arrested for public indecency all you like. Here, however, you are our student.”

“I barely get any time out of school to do what I want-”

“That is not my problem, Alex.”

This time, Alex did end up stomping his foot, and more. If D’Arc had to get entirely new office furniture, well, that was nobody’s business but his and Alex’s budding arson issue.

With his stupid wardrobe back to supposed “normal”, Alex found himself getting more and more annoyed day by day. What was worse, his wardrobe change made him appear somewhat more approachable than before. Turns out, even if you have the type of facial expression to make children cry, if you didn’t look like some sort of punk asshole then you would get asked out. A lot.

He had managed to keep his piercings, and the tattoos were lucky to stay as well, so he wasn’t entirely unchanged from before, but with the uniform back to plain people somehow thought he was becoming a ‘respectable member of the community’ or something.

It was irritatingly like some sort of rom-com when Alex found a love letter in his bag, which was from someone anonymous, commenting about how his shoulders ‘look so good in that jacket’ and he sighed with annoyance. Then he got another letter, this time on his desk, and then someone was leaving gifts in his things, and Alex was torn between figuring out if this was some sort of elaborate prank and letting it continue because there was something hilarious about how Yassen reacted to seeing his gifts.

“You’re too young for these kinds of things,” Yassen said, disapproving of the entire thing. “This could be something bad, as well. Someone could be slipping you poisons, or a bomb, and-”

“Just say you think I’m some weird baby that will never be old enough to marry until I’m thirty or something,” Alex interrupted.

“You shouldn’t marry in the first place, this line of work is-”

“Right, right, what’s next, you buy me a chastity belt?”

Yassen glared at him flatly. “Maybe I should let you have those clothes back from before. Built-in birth control.”

Alex decided not to mention that this person seemed to like his old style, even if the school uniform was also apparently fine. 

Ross, on the other hand, found the whole thing weirdly adorable and was always trying to guess who it was without actually using any of his espionage skills to figure it out.

“Maybe it’s that girl from your chemistry class! The one always making eyes at you!”

“... Which girl is that?”

“C’mon, kid, you know I can’t just tell you. Figure it out on your own. You’ve got the skills.”

Alex did have the skills. It was the fact that he had the skills and still hadn’t even noticed this shit that was kind of weird. Regardless, he finally managed to catch the perpetrator in the act.

It was Maddison Banks, a girl who was most definitely not in his chemistry class. She was taller than him, and on one of the sports teams though he couldn’t remember which. They only knew each other in passing, and it was a bit surprising to see her slipping a note onto his desk.

“Alex!” she exclaimed, as he walked up, a bit dumbfounded.

“Maddison,” he replied. “Uh. Fancy seeing you here…?”

She snorted. “That’s one way to put it. Guess the cat’s out of the bag now, innit?”

“Yeah,” he replied, and he awkwardly shifted his weight.

“Do you want me to stop? You seemed pretty amused by all my letters and gifts.”

Alex shrugged. “I’m not sure, honestly? I was half expecting a guy deep in the closet with some of your comments.”

She nodded and bit her lip, letting a small pause go between them before she asked, “Do you wanna go on a date, maybe?”

A date. Huh. Hadn’t gone on one of those in a while. He could only imagine how much of a mess that would be. Yassen would probably chaperone and Ross and Jet would spy from the bushes like dumbasses while Three suddenly replaced the head chef at the restaurant even if it was a shitty chain. 

More work for them.

“Sure, why not.”

Maddison gave him a sharp smirk that could cut glass with pure attitude alone and scribbled something on the note she had been about to give him. “Here’s my number. Wear that choker you used to wear all the time. It was cute.”

Alex flushed a bit at the word cute concerning him, but took the offered piece of paper, committing the number to memory, and continued about the rest of his day with an oddly warm feeling in his belly for the first time in months.

The date went well, for all intents and purposes. Alex managed to bribe Ross into distracting Yassen, and Maddison was fun to be around. She caught on that he didn’t have a normal life, what with the weird teachers all paying ridiculous amounts of attention to him, and she made fun of the same things as he did in the shitty movie they saw.

They may have had a war concerning food, in that they kept stealing food from each other’s plates, but he was genuinely smiling for the first time in weeks, and it was nice.

“That was nice,” Maddison said, dropping him off (she had insisted).

“It was,” he replied. “I’m not… I wouldn’t be opposed to a second date.”

She just laughed. “Maybe. We are nearing graduation, and your ‘teachers’ are likely to drive you into the ground with that, from what I’ve seen. Text me when they aren’t breathing down your neck, yeah?” Then she kissed him on the cheek.

“Yeah, that, uh, that sounds good,” Alex mumbled, feeling his ears heat up.

He went inside, and Jack grilled him immediately for details, and he gave them gladly, unaware that outside, Maddison stopped in an alleyway.

“You people are weirdly obsessed with him, you know that?” she said, and Jet shrugged.

“He’s a good kid. Don’t go yanking him around, or I will kill you.”

“Is that something he has to worry about often?”

“Pardon?”

“Being killed. Does he have to worry about that?”

Jet leveled the girl before her with a calculating stare. “Are you going to do something about it?”

“Are you?”

“We’re giving him the skills necessary to survive.”

“Then teach me as well,” Maddison demanded, walking up to Jet. “I want to learn.”

“This isn’t a decision to be made lightly,” Jet warned.

“Then I’ll prove it.”

There was a pregnant pause, but Maddison did not let it deter her. Seems Alex attracted someone worth interest.

“There is no giving up, girl. If you give up, I kill you myself.”

Maddison still did not falter in her stance, but her eyes did shine with some fear. Not perfectly trained, no, not trained by any means, but she had guts, and that was more than many. Perhaps there would be a benefit to this girl in more ways than one.


	12. Shenanigans Ensue

**Chapter 12: Shenanigans Ensue**

**By: Savsilvy**

* * *

Ross may be busy with teaching but he knew he had criminal responsibilities too. Most of the people in Scorpia knew they had to keep their organization alive. As a side to managing a bunch of teenagers, they did make sure drugs got from point A to point B for a few extra bucks. Ross was in the middle of distributing a few packs of various drugs and left some in his drawer in the faculty room for convenience’s sake. 

The faculty was pretty much composed of all drug dealers and assassins so a few packs of white powder in his drawer would not catch too much attention. _ I mean sure, drugs ruin lives but it's not like they kill people, right?  _ Ross thought to himself as he pushed the few packs to the deeper part of his drawer. Eventually, he did admit to himself he was unsure about how the faculty would react to him hiding his drug supply in the faculty drawer even if it was for distribution. They had shown before that they had little tolerance for knives. Eventually, he decided to walk out and look for a tiny place out in the garden to bury it until his customers came. 

He was out in the garden when he saw one Alex Rider asleep by the tree. He had picked a good angle invisible for anyone walking on the main path who had no business burying suspicious objects in invisible places. “You okay kid?”

“14 hours a day classes, drug suspicions… You decide.”

Alex looked tired and Ross knew he lacked sleep. Ross had seen from experience that the past few weeks were not what anyone, even he, who had spent years managing the black market, killing people and ruining lives, would not gladly put any minor through. 

On top of that, the constant exhaustion had taken its toll on Alex. He lost weight. The dark shadows under his eyes were larger and deeper and he looked miserable. At that moment, as he held the drugs in his bag, he started to understand how exactly the students put two and two together and concluded that Alex was a druggie. He had sold enough drugs and at that moment, Alex looked just like his customers. Alex looked like a druggie and was acting like one. Ross couldn’t help but sympathize. He was known as a druggie but never experienced the amazing high of a really good whiff of pot. 

“Hey, Alex.” He held Alex’s arm and gently pulled him up. “Let’s take a break.” 

“I  _ am _ on a break.” 

“Well, let’s make this break a little more fun…”

It was 5 pm, way past the time for anyone to still be on campus and Ross was sure they wouldn’t get caught. Ross led Alex to one of the bathrooms by the backdoor of the school, barely used by students because of the location. It was far from the faculty room and he knew he didn’t want anyone catching him, fucking up the poor kid anymore especially after giving him a “drug intervention.” 

At the moment though, he knew the poor boy needed it. 

Ross gave himself a virtual pat in the back as he closed the door of the bathroom and brought out the bag of weed. He had coke. He had shabu and worse drugs and imagining Alex high on some stronger drug was almost entertaining. Deciding to give him the milder one, already legal in many other countries must have been a better decision, right? 

Ross opened a packet and brought a pipe from out of his bag. 

“What are you doing?” Alex asked. 

Ross could tell by the way he looked at the pipe and back up at him that he knew and did not need to ask.

“Take a deep breath.”

At that point, Alex was exhausted and tired of whatever they were throwing at him. Ross had given him a pipe and as Alex breathed in the stale smell of weed and felt the burning in his throat, he started to relax.

His body which tensed up as he slept, a result of his caffeine intake, loosened up after a few more whiffs and Alex was in a happy place. 

“Gimme some more of that.” 

“Hey Alex, I have to sell these.”

“Just one more pipe. It's been so long since I loosened up like this. That pot thing is magic.”

Alex was knocked up on weed and caffeine. He was exhausted and desperate. He grabbed the bag of weed that Ross held on to for dear life and spilled it all over the floor of the comfort room. Before Ross could react, Alex had brought out his lighter and lit the five-kilogram pile of weed. 

Within a minute, the room reeked and Ross was starting to feel within him, the settling of a familiar nostalgic feeling of long ago. It had been years since he had smoked pot and had felt that relaxation. That time, it came too fast. He looked to the windows to see that they were bolted shut. The stench of burning weed was continuously rising and would soon saturate the small comfort room. 

Clearing the stench of weed from the bathroom was going to be worse than cleaning the Napalm after Alex's failed (or maybe successful) lab experiment. As Ross leaned on the wall and slid down next to Alex though, he decided that cleaning could wait another day. He was exhausted too. 

He leaned on sleeping Alex's shoulder and let the high consume him. 

Ross was a professional criminal and assassin and had gone to that position because of his carefulness and his ability to foresee problems that they could face in their line of work. 

He should have remembered to lock the door but as Alex had burnt the weed and the stench soon covered the room, Ross, completely consumed by the high by then, completely forgot too. 

He had picked an isolated barely used bathroom, yet he did not factor in the fact that a primary school was a few minutes’ walk from the back door of Brookland. The primary school was locked up by 4 pm and at the rare chance that a primary school student was left on campus by then, they would use the toilet in Brookland. That day, a child was left in front of their school to wait for their parents late. Needing to use the toilet, he found himself in the fateful comfort room where Alex and Ross were leaning against each other, completely high. 

The unlucky child found himself all giddy but still lucid enough to report to the nearest adult he knew, the police officer patrolling the school grounds, on the sick looking teacher, the sick looking student, and the weird smell of what might have been explosive diarrhea. 

An ambulance was called first and more police were called when the officer realized it wasn't the smell of explosive diarrhea but just the strong smell of weed. 

Alex and Ross were eventually brought to the hospital, completely high. They were discharged that night, the results of their drug tests positive, and their slots in drug rehab secured. 

That was how Alex found himself out of a job at MI6. 

MI6 was all-powerful and they knew they could have easily gotten Alex back in by proving that Alex was nowhere near addicted to drugs by pointing out that there were no long-term signs of drug abuse on his side. Alex, though, with Crawley's help, had leveraged Alex's druggie reputation and that particular experience to get himself checked into a rehab facility for some state-mandated rehab. With that, Alex got himself a break from everything spy-related, and MI6 and Crawley got himself a break from the Riders. 

Blunt was scrambling to replace Alex. Within a week or so of Alex being checked into rehab, it was announced that a new teen spy would be working under Crawley. As the latter went up to the entrance of Royal General Bank to meet Blunt's new recruit, he couldn't help but be reminded of Alex. 

The young boy wore a hoodie, with the hood pulled up over his face. 

“Nice to meet you.” 

“Nice to meet you. Crawley. By the way, I wouldn't recommend you have your hood up here. It's not professional.” 

“Wouldn't want people recognizing me.”

As Crawley held his hand out for the young boy to shake, he couldn't help but feel as if he was talking to Alex again.  _ Alex should be in rehab.  _ Crawley reassured himself. 

The boy in the hoodie held out his hand and shook Crawley’s hand. Fortunately, the boy was not Alex Rider. “Julius Grief. You can call me Julius.”


End file.
